The journal Nature has published findings on the Titanoboa cerrejonensis. It’s a prehistoric snake that could be longer than a school bus and weigh more than a small car. Weighing in at around 1.25 tons, it measures around 14 metres. The partial skeleton of this giant boa constrictor was found by a team of scientists in Columbia and is now at the University of Florida.

A snake this size has never been imagined. Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga told ScienceDaily.com, "The snake's body was so wide that if it were moving down the hall and decided to come into my office to eat me, it would literally have to squeeze through the door."

Jonathon Bloch, of the University of Florida, in an interview with TimesOnline.co.uk said, “It was not only the biggest predator in the region, as far as we know, but it was the largest terrestrial vertebrate known on the face of the planet for at least 10 million years. It could have eaten pretty much anything that came its way. If we had to guess, it probably ate a lot of fish and crocodyliforms.”

The size of the snake also indicates that temperatures in South America 60 million years ago would actually have been around four degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.