Friday, March 23, 2012

Snake, Giant Constrictor


Science has validated this scene from Milius's ConanTitanoboa cerrejonensis is the largest snake every discovered at up to 50 feet long, 3 feet in diameter at the thickest part of its body, and weighing in at 2500 pounds.  The giant constrictor in the 2nd Edition Monster Manual would be puny in comparison at a mere 30 feet in length--though that would be about the size of Gigantophis, the second largest snake ever discovered

Because the size of anything becomes more relatable when compared to a city bus, here you go:

There's also this life sized model in Grand Central Station (there's a SyFy original in that), captured in mid-swallow:


Titanoboa slithered through the Paleocene, around 58-60 million years ago, but records from that period are spotty at best.  There were probably a few around in ancient Atlantis or Lemuria, or some other forgotten continent.

13 comments:

Porky said...

The silhouette in the city bus pic suggests the creature exhibited an intriguing form of locomotion...

But I do wonder - how far is the snake from being able to fly?

Trey said...

Hmmm...Artistic license or some horrific insight from racial memory? I know which answer Robert E. Howard would favor.

Wikipedia tells me that Quetzalcoutlus, the largest flying thing known, was a paltry 500 pounds at best, so wings on titanoboa might not have done much. Of course, David Carradine might beg to differ.

Bill said...

Nice Q reference, Trey! I turned that movie into a Call of Cthulhu adventure one night when I was low on ideas. Ultimately, the players failed to prevent the summoning of Quetzalcoatl into NYC (I backed the story up a bit and had a sorcerer conducting ritual sacrifices to summon the beast) and were consumed by it, in what was then revealed to be a shared hallucination -- along with everything else in the campaign past the midway point of the first session!

Now I want to watch Q: The Winged Serpent again.

Chris C. said...

Very cool. The city bus graphic is super.

Harald said...

Holy crap! A human would be turned to mushy goo by a hug from that baby.

John Matthew Stater said...

When they find the rust monsters and beholders, I'll really freak out.

Sean Robson said...

Sweet. I love it when life imitates art. First came Utahraptor, validating the greatly over-sized Velociraptors of Jurassic Park and now Titanoboa. Bring on the monsters, I say!

Chris said...

@Sean Robson: bracing for Kong.

Pat said...

What's unclear in that diagram is whether the snake is driving the bus, or is merely a passenger.

Trey said...

Snakes on a bus!

@Chris - Yeah, Gigantopithecus is really just a Mighty Joe Young.

The Happy Whisk said...

Hahahaha. You made me laugh out loud with that whole bus thing. Very funny. Thanks.

Hope you have a groovy weekend. I'm working prep all weekend but only have four days left of my long-ass week.

Woohoo.

Cheers and boogie boogie.

Trey said...

Don't prep too hard. :)

Enjoy what of the weekend you can.

Justin S. Davis said...

John Voight and Ice Cube could take 'im, methinks.