Originally Posted By: exlabdriver
Tonight I watched a 2-hour program on The History Channel called 'Titanoboa'. In an open pit coal mine in Columbia, scientists recently found fossilized remains of a fearsome, gigantic boa-type of snake that was about 48' long with an estimated weight of 2500 lbs. Also found there were the remains of huge crocs, turtles & plants from 60 million years ago that all dwarf anything today.

Their hypothesis is that the only way that these creatures & plants could have grown that large is due to a far warmer climate at that time than we have presently - probably at least an average of 5 degrees C warmer globally than now. Interestingly, there were no smokestacks back then.

In the past our climate has been both much warmer & far colder than now. Despite humankind's activities on this rock, our climate will continue to fluctuate naturally over the eons until the eventual demise of our sun...

TAM



I saw that same documentary, very interesting and I must admit their hypothesis about climate in relation to the enormous size of these prehistoric, especially cold-blooded animals, is quite intriguing and makes a lot of sense even in relation to the size of certain animals today and where they inhabit.

I would think the question that has to be asked is how long did it take for those animals to grow that large in that significantly warmer climate? The Burmese pythons that are not supposed to be in the Florida everglades, according to scientists, are already noticeably larger than when they were first found in that environment and that wasn't that long ago.