Move Over Titanoboa, Fossil Of "Largest Snake To Have Ever Existed" Found In Gujarat

Scientists have said that a fossil vertebrae unearthed in Gujarat are the remains of the largest snake that ever lived, which was longer than the T-rex. The discovery of 'Vasuki Indicus' was made in 2005 by scientists from IIT-Roorkee and recently confirmed as a giant snake. It establishes India's crucial link in the origin and evolutionary process of various species, especially reptiles. The researchers have discovered 27 vertebrae from the snake, and some of them looks like a large python and would not have been venomous. They estimate the length of the snake to be in the range of 11-15 metres (about 50 feet) and it must have weighed 1 tonne.

IIT Roorkee's Prof. Sunil Bajpai & Debajit Datta discovered Vasuki Indicus, a 47-million-year-old snake species in Kutch, Gujarat. Estimated at 11-15 meters, this extinct snake sheds light on India's prehistoric biodiversity. Published in Scientific Reports. #SnakeDiscovery pic.twitter.com/ruLsfgPQCc

— IIT Roorkee (@iitroorkee) April 18, 2024

The research was published in 'Scientific Reports' on 'Springer Nature' on Thursday.

"Considering its large size, Vasuki was a slow-moving ambush predator that would subdue its prey through constriction like anacondas and pythons. This snake lived in a marshy swamp near the coast at a time when global temperatures were higher than today," Debajit Datta, a postdoctoral researcher in palaeontology at IIT-Roorkee and the lead author of the study, told The Guardian.

The fossil has been named after Vasuki, the snake king associated with Lord Shiva.

Its size rivals Titanoboa, which once lived in Colombia around 60 million years ago. It measured about 43 feet in length and weighed more than one tonne.

"The estimated body length of Vasuki is comparable to that of Titanoboa, although the vertebrae of Titanoboa are slightly larger than those of Vasuki. However, at this point, we cannot say if Vasuki was more massive or slender compared to Titanoboa," Sunil Bajpai, a palaeontologist, professor at Roorkee and the study's co-author, told the outlet.

The largest living snake today is Asia's reticulated python at 10 metres (33 feet).

Though the fossil was found in an area that is dry and dusty today, it was swampy when Vasuki roamed the Earth, said Mr Bajpai.

The discovery gives scientists not only a closer look into the evolution of snakes but also a deeper understanding of how continents physically shifted over time and species dispersed across the globe, a per Scientific American.