Bus-sized serpent fossil slithers into record books

The investigators found the remains of the new species at an unlikely location - in one of the world's largest open-cast coalmines in Cerrejon, Colombia, where giant machines had obligingly gnawed away surface layers of dirt.

The team sifted through the earth, laying bare the remains of supersized snakes and their likely prey - extinct species of crocodiles and giant turtles - and evidence that a massive rainforest once covered the ground.

"The giant Colombian snake is a truly exciting discovery. For years, herpetologists have argued about just how big snakes can get, with debatable estimates of the max somewhere less than 40 feet (12.3 m)," said leading snake expert Harry Greene of Cornell University, New York.

The world's longest snake today is the Asian reticulated python, specimens of which can grow about 10 m, and the biggest in terms of mass is the green anaconda, with some specimens weighing 227 kg.

Editor:Zhang Pengfei