60 million years ago, a gigantic apex predator ruled the swampy jungles of South America.
Titanoboa, a snake as long as a full-size school bus, slithered through the muddy rivers and lowlands of northern Colombia, lording over primeval jungles until its eventual extinction; but what if Titanoboa, the largest snake ever discovered, was still alive today?
In the warm jungles of the Amazon lives one of the heaviest and longest snakes in South America and the world.
The Green Anaconda is a water-loving snake large enough to swallow deer, sheep, and even big cats, like the spotted jaguar.
With expert camouflage, they hide in shallow rivers and flooded grasslands, ambushing prey and suffocating them with their powerful bodies.
Growing up to 9 meters long, these huge slithering carnivores are the stuff of nightmares, but a more terrifying monster once lived and hunted in the very same jungles.
During the Paleocene Epoch, which began about 66 million years ago, the king of the primeval world was not Tyrannosaurus Rex or Spinosaurus but a colossal snake lurking in the warmest, wettest corners of South America.
Back then, our planet was significantly hotter and more humid, partially due to abundant CO2 in the atmosphere.
Some parts of the world were already scorching during the Late Cretaceous Period, the last great age of the dinosaurs, but temperatures climbed even higher following a global catastrophe known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene or K-Pg Extinction Event.
At the end-boundary of the Cretaceous period, a large asteroid likely crashed into shallow waters along the coast of modern-day Mexico.
