Just like a modern jungle. Except with bloody enormous snakes.
Posted on 10/14/2009 11:54:03 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Fossil boffins say that dense triple-canopy rainforests, home among other things to gigantic one-tonne boa constrictors, flourished millions of years ago in temperatures 3-5°C warmer than those seen today - as hot as some of the more dire global-warming projections.
Just like a modern jungle. Except with bloody enormous snakes.
The new fossil evidence comes from the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, previously the location where the remains of the gigantic 40-foot Titanoboa cerrejonensis were discovered. The snake's discoverers attracted flak from global-warming worriers at the time for saying that the cold-blooded creature would only have been able to survive in jungles a good bit hotter than Colombia's now are.
But now, according to further diggings, there is more evidence to support the idea that a proper rainforest similar to those now seen in the tropics existed at the time of the Titanoboa - despite the much hotter temperatures. This could be seen as conflicting with the idea that a rise of more than two or three degrees would kill off today's jungles with devastating consequences for the global ecosystem of which we are all part.
"Rainforests, with their palms and spectacular flowering-plant diversity, seem to have come into existence in the Paleocene epoch, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago," says Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "Forests before the mass extinction were quite different from our fossil rainforest at Cerrejón. We find new plant families, large, smooth-margined leaves and a three-tiered structure of forest floor, understory shrubs and high canopy."
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Lawrence Solomon: The end is near ( global warming scare is all over but the shouting )
“Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”
I'm thinking snake steaks would be pretty marketable.
The BBC, the UN, and climate bullying ( Grab an umbrella: it's global wetting, now...)
Someone ping G-Cube!
What? They couldn’t show us a motherf’n snake by putting it on a motherf’n plane? :)
/titanosnicker....
Member of the boa family, South America’s green anaconda is, pound for pound, the largest snake in the world. Its cousin, the reticulated python, can reach slightly greater lengths, but the enormous girth of the anaconda makes it almost twice as heavy.
Green anacondas can grow to more than 29 feet (8.8 meters), weigh more than 550 pounds (227 kilograms), and measure more than 12 inches (30 centimeters) in diameter. Females are significantly larger than males. Other anaconda species, all from South America and all smaller than the green anaconda, are the yellow, dark-spotted, and Bolivian varieties.
Anacondas live in swamps, marshes, and slow-moving streams, mainly in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon and Orinoco basins. They are cumbersome on land, but stealthy and sleek in the water. Their eyes and nasal openings are on top of their heads, allowing them to lay in wait for prey
Probably tastes like chicken....LOL!
LOL!
Global Warming is such a Hoax....besides ...the snakes might like it...
Snakes on a plain?.................
Obligatory: “Millions of Years ago”...... God didn’t exist yet??
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Thanks Ernest. |
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GIANT SNAKE PICTURES: Alien Species Invading U.S.?
See an Anaconda capture a Giant size meal....
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