STL Science Center

STL Science Center

16 March 2017

The Charmer Snake

Through no mistake has Titanoboa become a popular fossil snake. The sheer size alone is enough to make people ooh and ahh over the giant reptile and the popularity that followed is entirely expected. This popularity can be seen in the number of sites online hosting facts and images of the snake as well as the fact that the snake had a one hour documentary dedicated entirely to the single taxon. In the vein of many internet speculation sites, the Smithsonian's work on Titanoboa even allowed for the fairly ludicrous time traveling fight between a Tyrannosaurus and Titanoboa, giving into the popularity of online forums that pose "what if" encounters between apex predators. We now hypothesize that Titanoboa was piscivorous and not really an apex predator, so many of these sensationalist popular views can be thrown out anyhow. thankfully, without linking a lot of books, we have other popular outlets. The most visible of these is video games and, again, ARK manages to include more fossil animals in the game. ARK tends to err on the side of intrigue ever so slightly when re-creating fossil animals and with Titanoboa the designers managed to find something, even on a snake, to indulge their creativity and the fantasy of the game. The snake looks surly and vicious and manages to do so sporting an almost hairy looking frill:

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