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A lost world of
giants, 60 million years old.

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Ruled by a slithery monarch
of unbelievable size.

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It sounds like fantasy, but it's not.

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This world was once here.

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Among these seams of coal
lies the evidence.

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This is
a once-in-a-lifetime discovery,

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really, this is just amazing.

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A treasure trove of fossils.

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One, a terrifying stealth killer,

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straight from our darkest nightmares.

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You make a discovery

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and you know that
it's gonna be something

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that everyone knows about.

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It's the biggest
of its kind ever to live.

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We're absolutely ecstatic,
we were giddy schoolboys.

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This mighty predator
dominated then disappeared.

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Now, science is bringing it back.

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Wow.

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This is Titanoboa.

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65 and a half million years ago,

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a giant meteorite hits the earth
near Mexico.

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The rule of the dinosaur is over.

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The next 10 million years is
one of the most mysterious times

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in earth's history,

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and in one part,
the South American tropics,

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the mystery is total.

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There is only silence,

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until something remarkable happens.

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This is Cerrejon.

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A grand canyon carved by vast machines,

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gouging out 35 million tons
of coal every year.

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A hole in the earth the size
of 8,000 football fields.

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But this mine is not just
spitting out coal,

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it's also an accidental time machine.

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Every layer is a slice
of earth's history.

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In December 2002, a sharp-eyed
Colombian geology student,

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Fabiany Herrera, spotted
something completely unexpected

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at the mine...

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A fossilized leaf.

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It was the first tiny step in an
unparalleled scientific quest.

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Over the coming decade,

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it would reveal a vanished world
and a lost time.

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Herrera showed the fossilized
leaf to his mentor,

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an expert in prehistoric plants.

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He brought the leaf back to the lab

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and I realized the amazing opportunity

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and potential that this mine had.

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Carlos Jaramillo
eventually got permission

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for a team of scientists
to dig at Cerrejon.

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The results were extraordinary.

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The single leaf fossil was only
the first clue to the lost world

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that emerged after the dinosaurs.

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They found the very first bean plants

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and fossils showing an explosion
of plant families,

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like the banana,

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the palm,

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the avocado,

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and even chocolate.

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It all added up to a huge
and stunning discovery.

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The coal itself is a chunk of rainforest

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that is preserved back in time.

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We believe that

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this might represent

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the birth of modern rainforest

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in South America.

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60 million years ago,
this massive bowl of coal

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contained the first recorded
tropical rainforest.

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This is the new living earth

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that emerges after the meteorite
destroys the old.

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Amid the coal dust, it seems
almost impossible to imagine it.

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Today it's a very dry place,

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but 60 million years ago,
this was a tropical rainforest

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with tree birds meandering,
big trees and mist.

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But this is much more

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than a story of trees and leaves.

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We want to study the whole ecosystem,

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the geology, the plants,
and the animals.

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It is those animals

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that will capture
the world's imagination,

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identified from an amazing
variety of clues...

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Ribs, shells, and vertebrae,
or backbones.

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It will need a specialist in
animal fossils to decode them.

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In 2004, Jon Bloch, an expert
in fossil vertebrates

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traveled from the university
of Florida to Cerrejon

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for the first time.

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He was astonished.

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A whole new ancient world
of vertebrates,

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animals with backbones that
would dominate earth's future,

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was opening up.

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The most exciting observation was that

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these were bones from
the tropics of South America,

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from that 10 million years

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following the extinction
of the dinosaurs.

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And why that was so exciting is
that we had no record whatsoever

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of vertebrates on land
during that time period.

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We just had no idea what was here.

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Cerrejon was becoming a laboratory

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for investigating
the lost tropical world.

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In 2005, Carlos Jaramillo joined

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the Smithsonian tropical
research institute.

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It was able to guarantee
this huge endeavor

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the long-term backing
it would now need.

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Every time we come here,

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we are mesmerized with
all the new things we found

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that we never expected.

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Jon Bloch and his
colleagues begin their search.

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It is soon apparent that the
lost world teems with animals.

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Initially, when we started collecting,

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especially on this slope,

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there was so much bone

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that we picked up a lot
of things all at once,

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it was almost like a salvage
kind of operation.

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It's also clear

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that two creatures particularly thrive.

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This is a piece of
a very large turtle here,

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and then right next to it,

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there's a backbone of
a very large crocodile,

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beautifully preserved.

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The sheer scale
of the fossils is amazing.

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Turtles with shells
the size of pool tables,

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snub nosed crocodiles as long as an SUV,

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and species never seen before.

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We would pick up things
very quickly, wrap them up,

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so we could clean them back
at the lab and then study them.

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The turtle and crocodile fossils

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were temporarily loaned
to the research team

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by the Colombian geological survey.

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Then, one night at the lab
at the university of Florida,

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something strange begins to happen.

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Grad student Alex Hastings

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is sorting yet another box
of fossils from Cerrejon.

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I received the fossils

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and was just unpacking them
late one night.

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All of these were
labeled "croc vert."

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I get out several crocodile vertebrae.

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A couple of vertebrae did not match,

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they were very, very distinct,
very large,

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and I didn't know
exactly what they were.

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Other than that I knew

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that they were definitely not
of crocodiles.

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Another grad student, Jason Bourne,

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a reptile specialist,
is also working late that night.

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So I was just coming back from class

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and Alex was there,

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and he just had a couple of
things he wasn't sure about,

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and so he said, do you have
any ideas what this might be?

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And I picked it up

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and I just kind of stared at it
for a second.

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It was, you know, crushed pretty flat.

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My eyes got really wide

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and I was like, oh, this is
a, you know, giant snake.

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Once we compared that to modern snakes,

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it became incredibly clear

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that they were definitely
snake vertebrae,

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and we were able to figure out

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that we really had,
not only a large snake,

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but the largest snake that
has been known to science.

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It hardly seems possible.

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The vertebrae indicates a snake

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vastly bigger than any snake today.

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So big that it stretches
the entire length of the lab.

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Probably this big.

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That's probably a bit smaller.

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We were absolutely ecstatic,
it was a very exciting moment,

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and for that evening, we were
the only people in the world

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that knew about it at the time.

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It wasn't until the next day

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we started bringing in
Jon and everybody else.

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So for one evening,
we're the only people that knew

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we had this enormous, massive snake,

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and we were very, very excited.

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Incredible though it is,

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it seems two grad students
have on their hands

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one of the biggest discoveries
of the century.

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It's like finding t-Rex.

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The next morning,
a third person, Jon Bloch,

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is let in on the secret.

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I just couldn't wait
to get in the next day

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and tell Jon what happened.

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You know, I just remember saying,

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"do you know you have
the largest snake in the world?"

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And his face just kind of dropped,

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and, you know, he was just like,
"are you kidding me?"

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I think, probably,

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my reaction was pretty similar
to the reaction

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that maybe my seven-year-old son
would have experienced.

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And just complete excitement and awe

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that such a huge snake exists.

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It is a sublime moment

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that most scientists can only dream of.

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For a few precious hours,

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the two young students and
their teacher hold a secret

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that will open up a whole
new chapter in natural history.

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During the course of your career,

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you don't have a lot of moments
where you make a discovery,

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and you look at it, and you just
sort of get that feeling,

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you know that you're really
not gonna be the only person

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that knows about this thing,

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that it's gonna be something
that everyone knows about.

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The extraordinary night in the lab

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will propel Jon Bloch into
an age-old human obsession.

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Snakes have always been symbols
of threat and danger.

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From the serpent in the garden of eden,

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to the mythical dragon
snakes gave rise to,

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they are the beasts humans
must fight or be destroyed by.

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An animal that strikes awe and terror

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into cultures from ancient China
to the new world.

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There are frighteningly good
reasons for these fears.

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Around a million people are
bitten by venomous snakes

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each year.

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Up to 90,000 die.

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Tens of millions are gripped
by snake phobia.

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The giant discovered in
Cerrejon, though long extinct,

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will add an unimaginable
new dimension to snake lore.

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But the single vertebra
is only the start.

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The team's investigation
will take them away

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from the long dead,

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into the living world of large snakes.

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From there, they will enter
a time tunnel

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and confront a creature
unlike any other.

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The scourge of the lost
rainforests of South America.

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A predator squeezing the life
out of its victims.

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The snake to beat all snakes.

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It tagged you good, look at that, Jesus.

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It was the fossils unearthed

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in the vast coalmine of Cerrejon

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that opened up the lost world
of 60 million years ago.

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But these ancient bones
give only a glimpse

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of the creatures that live there.

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To see the past more clearly,

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the team turn their attention
to the animals of today.

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After the students'
discovery in the lab,

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the next stop for
the investigating scientists

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is the collection of
modern snake skeletons

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at the Florida museum
of natural history.

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Its biggest specimen
is from an anaconda,

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the heaviest snake living today.

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How will its backbone compare

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with the giant vertebra from Cerrejon?

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We went and got a
skeleton of a 17-foot anaconda,

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which was the largest anaconda
that we had in our collections.

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That's a big snake.

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The largest piece of
the backbone of that snake,

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and it was about this big,

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compared to the vertebra
that we've just unwrapped,

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which was about this big.

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So, you know, I thought,
well, my goodness,

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if this is 17 feet,
then this thing must be 80 feet.

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The team is finding itself

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swept up in an enduring pursuit...

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The quest for the world's longest snake.

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One pioneer was the Victorian
explorer Percy Fawcett

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who claimed to have seen
a 60-foot-long anaconda

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in the South American rainforest.

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00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:10,694
But he went missing in the forest

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00:14:10,727 --> 00:14:13,560
before supplying any evidence

257
00:14:13,594 --> 00:14:16,027
and was never seen again.

258
00:14:16,060 --> 00:14:20,027
In 1912, the former U.S.
President Theodore Roosevelt

259
00:14:20,060 --> 00:14:23,694
offered a prize at the Bronx zoo
of $1,000

260
00:14:23,727 --> 00:14:25,660
to anyone who could produce a snake

261
00:14:25,694 --> 00:14:28,060
of more than 30 feet in length.

262
00:14:29,727 --> 00:14:32,327
Explorers and collectors
scoured the globe,

263
00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:34,227
from Peru to the Congo.

264
00:14:34,260 --> 00:14:38,794
But a 30-foot snake remained
tantalizingly elusive.

265
00:14:40,060 --> 00:14:43,127
A species from Asia,
the reticulated python,

266
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:44,660
has come the closest,

267
00:14:44,694 --> 00:14:49,127
measuring up to a staggering
28 and a half feet.

268
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:51,894
But not one snake has yet
been brought forward

269
00:14:51,927 --> 00:14:55,560
that can claim Roosevelt's
century-old prize.

270
00:14:59,794 --> 00:15:02,294
Zoos across the world
remain on the lookout

271
00:15:02,327 --> 00:15:04,960
for the longest snake.

272
00:15:04,994 --> 00:15:08,594
One of the oldest is the
zoological society of London,

273
00:15:08,627 --> 00:15:12,127
where Ian Stephen is
the resident snake expert.

274
00:15:13,660 --> 00:15:15,827
Whether it's
the biggest dinosaur on earth,

275
00:15:15,860 --> 00:15:17,360
you know, the blue whale,

276
00:15:17,394 --> 00:15:20,627
people are always fascinated
by big animals.

277
00:15:20,660 --> 00:15:23,694
It's almost every
reptile curator's dream,

278
00:15:23,727 --> 00:15:25,794
I think, sort of secretly

279
00:15:25,827 --> 00:15:29,794
to have the biggest snake in the world.

280
00:15:29,827 --> 00:15:31,894
But the size of these modern snakes

281
00:15:31,927 --> 00:15:33,160
is nothing compared with that

282
00:15:33,194 --> 00:15:36,560
suggested by the find at Cerrejon.

283
00:15:42,827 --> 00:15:45,994
After the discovery
of the giant vertebra,

284
00:15:46,027 --> 00:15:50,660
Jon Bloch contacted Jason head,
an expert on extinct snakes,

285
00:15:50,694 --> 00:15:52,760
at the university of Nebraska.

286
00:15:52,794 --> 00:15:55,660
We were unwrapping fossils
from Cerrejon this morning,

287
00:15:55,694 --> 00:15:56,660
we found something really incredible

288
00:15:56,694 --> 00:15:58,160
that I wanted to show you.

289
00:15:58,194 --> 00:16:00,894
By now, more and more huge vertebrae

290
00:16:00,927 --> 00:16:03,560
were being unearthed at Cerrejon.

291
00:16:03,594 --> 00:16:06,694
Jon began by showing
one of the smaller examples.

292
00:16:06,727 --> 00:16:09,760
I think it's
a snake fossil, but it's big.

293
00:16:09,794 --> 00:16:11,360
Yeah, sure.

294
00:16:11,394 --> 00:16:15,827
Jason still vividly
remembers that video conference.

295
00:16:15,860 --> 00:16:17,894
Jon's students had actually realized

296
00:16:17,927 --> 00:16:19,927
that they had a very large snake fossil.

297
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:21,927
And Jon brought it to the video camera,

298
00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:23,694
and he held it up and said,

299
00:16:23,727 --> 00:16:26,594
"look at this, I think this must
be the world's biggest snake."

300
00:16:26,627 --> 00:16:28,694
That's definitely a snake,

301
00:16:28,727 --> 00:16:31,594
and that specimen is about
the same size as Gigantophis,

302
00:16:31,627 --> 00:16:35,227
so that's the same size
as the largest known snake.

303
00:16:35,260 --> 00:16:38,794
Gigantophis, which
Jason had recently measured,

304
00:16:38,827 --> 00:16:43,327
was the largest snake so far
known to have lived on earth.

305
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:45,127
36 million years ago,

306
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:48,294
it preyed on primitive elephants
in the swamps of Egypt

307
00:16:48,327 --> 00:16:52,194
and measured a colossal 33 feet.

308
00:16:52,227 --> 00:16:56,560
Jason's world record holder
was now under challenge.

309
00:16:56,594 --> 00:16:58,627
The vertebra he showed me
was about the same size,

310
00:16:58,660 --> 00:17:00,160
and I was kind of, you know,

311
00:17:00,194 --> 00:17:03,994
it's big, but maybe it's not that big.

312
00:17:04,027 --> 00:17:05,794
Okay, yeah, we have others.

313
00:17:05,827 --> 00:17:07,560
I mean, he was impressed,
it was a big snake,

314
00:17:07,594 --> 00:17:10,227
but he wasn't really
taken aback, he'd seen bigger.

315
00:17:10,260 --> 00:17:13,094
So, at that point, I felt like
I hadn't really given him

316
00:17:13,127 --> 00:17:14,594
the correct impression.

317
00:17:14,627 --> 00:17:16,760
Jon had a larger vertebra from Cerrejon

318
00:17:16,794 --> 00:17:18,594
up his sleeve.

319
00:17:18,627 --> 00:17:20,794
And he said, "well,
hold on, I'll be right back."

320
00:17:20,827 --> 00:17:22,094
So I went running out of the room

321
00:17:22,127 --> 00:17:23,694
and grabbed the biggest one I could find

322
00:17:23,727 --> 00:17:24,927
that we had unwrapped.

323
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:28,294
He came back
with a much bigger vertebra.

324
00:17:28,327 --> 00:17:30,660
This is bigger.

325
00:17:30,694 --> 00:17:34,227
Seeing him holding this,
very excited, in his hand.

326
00:17:34,260 --> 00:17:36,894
That is the world's largest snake, Jon.

327
00:17:36,927 --> 00:17:38,227
I was absolutely surprised.

328
00:17:38,260 --> 00:17:40,894
That's the largest snake I've ever seen.

329
00:17:40,927 --> 00:17:43,260
That's got to be the largest
snake in the world, Jon.

330
00:17:43,294 --> 00:17:45,327
If you would have told me that
there were snakes that big

331
00:17:45,360 --> 00:17:47,760
in the fossil record, I probably
wouldn't have believed you.

332
00:17:47,794 --> 00:17:49,760
That was impressive enough.

333
00:17:49,794 --> 00:17:52,594
He said, "Jon, look at
your office door."

334
00:17:52,627 --> 00:17:54,127
And I looked over to the office door,

335
00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:57,327
and he said, "if that snake were
to come into your office,

336
00:17:57,360 --> 00:17:59,860
it would have to squeeze
through the doorway

337
00:17:59,894 --> 00:18:02,060
as it was slithering in."

338
00:18:02,094 --> 00:18:06,660
And that was enough to set
the impression completely.

339
00:18:06,694 --> 00:18:08,094
By the end of the call,

340
00:18:08,127 --> 00:18:12,294
Jason head was convinced
Jon had found something special.

341
00:18:12,327 --> 00:18:14,927
Most of the other fossil snakes we find

342
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,660
are kind of in the vicinity
of the largest estimates

343
00:18:17,694 --> 00:18:19,094
of the biggest giant snakes today,

344
00:18:19,127 --> 00:18:22,560
which has kind of suggested,
at least to me, previously,

345
00:18:22,594 --> 00:18:25,794
that maybe that was roughly the
maximum size snakes could get,

346
00:18:25,827 --> 00:18:27,960
either physiologically or ecologically.

347
00:18:27,994 --> 00:18:30,194
I'm getting a flight ticket and
heading down there right now.

348
00:18:30,227 --> 00:18:31,227
Okay.

349
00:18:36,594 --> 00:18:38,060
At the Florida lab,

350
00:18:38,094 --> 00:18:39,994
Jason's first line of investigation

351
00:18:40,027 --> 00:18:43,060
is into the kind of snake this is.

352
00:18:44,627 --> 00:18:46,927
Is it related to a type already known,

353
00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:50,660
or something completely new?

354
00:18:50,694 --> 00:18:52,127
With only vertebrae to go on,

355
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:57,694
this is a complex task
requiring an expert eye.

356
00:18:57,727 --> 00:18:58,760
In the case of snakes,

357
00:18:58,794 --> 00:19:00,027
figuring out who's related to who

358
00:19:00,060 --> 00:19:02,127
would be easy if we had complete skulls.

359
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:03,694
But most of the fossil record of snakes

360
00:19:03,727 --> 00:19:06,060
consist of isolated backbones.

361
00:19:06,094 --> 00:19:08,660
But snake skulls are extremely fragile

362
00:19:08,694 --> 00:19:10,827
and hard to find.

363
00:19:10,860 --> 00:19:12,827
So Jason has to begin a process

364
00:19:12,860 --> 00:19:15,960
of comparing these isolated backbones

365
00:19:15,994 --> 00:19:19,127
with a huge range of snakes
in his database,

366
00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:22,327
both living and dead.

367
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:24,560
In order to figure out
who this animal's related to

368
00:19:24,594 --> 00:19:27,694
and who it was, what we need
to do is make comparisons

369
00:19:27,727 --> 00:19:29,760
between subtle changes in the anatomy,

370
00:19:29,794 --> 00:19:33,094
between this animal and
other living and fossil snakes.

371
00:19:34,594 --> 00:19:37,227
All snakes have one thing in common...

372
00:19:37,260 --> 00:19:39,927
They are a type of lizard
that lost their legs

373
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:42,327
as they developed elongated bodies.

374
00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:46,560
They may look similar
to the untrained eye,

375
00:19:46,594 --> 00:19:50,260
but their evolution is highly varied.

376
00:19:50,294 --> 00:19:53,794
Somewhere about
100 million years ago or so,

377
00:19:53,827 --> 00:19:56,227
snakes evolved this elongate, limbless,

378
00:19:56,260 --> 00:19:58,194
or limb-reduced body plan.

379
00:19:58,227 --> 00:20:01,060
And in that body plan or that body form,

380
00:20:01,094 --> 00:20:02,694
they immediately started inhabiting

381
00:20:02,727 --> 00:20:03,994
different environments.

382
00:20:04,027 --> 00:20:06,127
They were burrowers, they were swimmers,

383
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:08,894
and the body itself,
the actual vertebral column

384
00:20:08,927 --> 00:20:10,627
and the ribs and that muscular system,

385
00:20:10,660 --> 00:20:12,694
that becomes the method of locomotion,

386
00:20:12,727 --> 00:20:14,760
that becomes their
means of moving around,

387
00:20:14,794 --> 00:20:17,160
that snakelike motion that you see.

388
00:20:17,194 --> 00:20:19,594
It seems almost counterintuitive

389
00:20:19,627 --> 00:20:21,227
that an animal should lose its limbs.

390
00:20:21,260 --> 00:20:23,227
And yet the snakes
are still with us today

391
00:20:23,260 --> 00:20:26,694
and are actually one of the most
successful groups of vertebrates

392
00:20:26,727 --> 00:20:28,560
on the planet.

393
00:20:28,594 --> 00:20:33,660
Over their 100 million
years, snakes have diversified.

394
00:20:33,694 --> 00:20:36,627
Some families have developed
super-toxic venom

395
00:20:36,660 --> 00:20:42,127
with specialized fangs, like
cobras, vipers and rattlesnakes.

396
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:44,060
Others don't use venom at all,

397
00:20:44,094 --> 00:20:47,294
but kill by crushing the life
out of their prey...

398
00:20:47,327 --> 00:20:48,927
The constrictors.

399
00:20:50,927 --> 00:20:53,894
From his initial comparison
of the Cerrejon vertebra

400
00:20:53,927 --> 00:20:56,360
with the backbones of modern snakes,

401
00:20:56,394 --> 00:21:00,794
Jason soon concludes that it is
similar to boas and pythons,

402
00:21:00,827 --> 00:21:03,294
both constrictors.

403
00:21:03,327 --> 00:21:04,660
The group of snakes that it belongs to

404
00:21:04,694 --> 00:21:06,294
are absolutely not venomous.

405
00:21:06,327 --> 00:21:08,127
They, of course, acquire their
prey in a very different way,

406
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,760
and that's the kind of iconic
constricting behavior

407
00:21:10,794 --> 00:21:13,160
that everyone thinks about
when they think about boas

408
00:21:13,194 --> 00:21:16,127
and pythons and anacondas
and things like that.

409
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:18,227
To advance their investigation,

410
00:21:18,260 --> 00:21:19,227
the scientists must enter

411
00:21:19,260 --> 00:21:22,260
the extraordinary and
highly successful world

412
00:21:22,294 --> 00:21:24,627
of the big constrictors.

413
00:21:24,660 --> 00:21:29,627
How do they hunt, kill,
breed, and adapt?

414
00:21:29,660 --> 00:21:32,694
There's one surprising place
to find out,

415
00:21:32,727 --> 00:21:35,027
just 500 Miles from the lab.

416
00:21:40,227 --> 00:21:42,827
Jon Bloch heads for
the Florida everglades,

417
00:21:42,860 --> 00:21:46,694
now home to one of the biggest
snakes in the world.

418
00:21:46,727 --> 00:21:49,694
It can grow to over 20 feet in length,

419
00:21:49,727 --> 00:21:52,227
and it's not native to Florida.

420
00:21:52,260 --> 00:21:55,694
It's the Burmese python.

421
00:21:55,727 --> 00:21:59,660
Jon's guide is a local
reptile expert, Shawn Heflick.

422
00:22:11,827 --> 00:22:15,094
Before they go hunting,
Jon shows Shawn the vertebra

423
00:22:15,127 --> 00:22:17,660
from the giant snake from Cerrejon.

424
00:22:17,694 --> 00:22:18,760
We've got a snake for comparison.

425
00:22:18,794 --> 00:22:20,660
Uh-oh, you got goodies?

426
00:22:20,694 --> 00:22:22,860
Yeah.

427
00:22:22,894 --> 00:22:27,994
What we've got here is
the cast of the original bone.

428
00:22:28,027 --> 00:22:29,360
This is one of the vertebra.

429
00:22:29,394 --> 00:22:30,294
Wait a minute, what?

430
00:22:30,327 --> 00:22:31,794
Yeah.

431
00:22:31,827 --> 00:22:34,360
So this is a vertebra,
so one piece of the backbone.

432
00:22:34,394 --> 00:22:35,927
Get out of here.

433
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:37,627
Wow.

434
00:22:37,660 --> 00:22:39,227
That is impressive.

435
00:22:40,694 --> 00:22:42,760
This is a modern-sized
whale vertebra.

436
00:22:42,794 --> 00:22:44,560
That's insane.

437
00:22:44,594 --> 00:22:47,727
And this isn't even the
largest bone that we've found.

438
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:49,194
I'm almost speechless,

439
00:22:49,227 --> 00:22:54,727
because that is truly
a monstrosity among snakes.

440
00:22:54,760 --> 00:23:00,760
It's hard for me to conceive
an animal of that mass and size

441
00:23:00,794 --> 00:23:02,894
having lived on this planet.

442
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:13,960
The snakes in today's everglades

443
00:23:13,994 --> 00:23:18,127
may be 60 million years away
from the lost world of Cerrejon,

444
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:21,894
but now, as then,
they're certainly thriving.

445
00:23:24,860 --> 00:23:26,994
Seen a lot of pythons
in this area right here,

446
00:23:27,027 --> 00:23:28,360
it's got everything they need...

447
00:23:28,394 --> 00:23:32,094
A lot of cover, access to water,
a lot of prey.

448
00:23:40,860 --> 00:23:43,360
But there's a curious twist.

449
00:23:43,394 --> 00:23:44,994
The Burmese python belongs

450
00:23:45,027 --> 00:23:47,860
in the rainforests of southeast Asia.

451
00:23:47,894 --> 00:23:50,127
It shouldn't be here at all.

452
00:23:53,694 --> 00:23:57,660
In 1992, hurricane Andrew hit Florida.

453
00:23:59,360 --> 00:24:02,060
Among its casualties was
an animal warehouse

454
00:24:02,094 --> 00:24:04,594
containing hundreds of Burmese pythons,

455
00:24:04,627 --> 00:24:06,694
destined for the pet trade.

456
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,227
Around 900 escaped.

457
00:24:11,260 --> 00:24:14,627
They flourished in
the hot, humid conditions,

458
00:24:14,660 --> 00:24:17,727
devouring everything in their path.

459
00:24:19,127 --> 00:24:20,827
Over the past 19 years,

460
00:24:20,860 --> 00:24:22,994
the number of pythons on the loose

461
00:24:23,027 --> 00:24:26,060
is thought to have risen to 10,000.

462
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,560
Shawn Heflick is licensed by the
state of Florida to catch them,

463
00:24:32,594 --> 00:24:35,994
in an effort to keep
the population under control.

464
00:24:37,794 --> 00:24:40,627
Nothing is safe from
these rampant pythons...

465
00:24:40,660 --> 00:24:44,527
Birds, mammals, reptiles
are all easy victims.

466
00:24:45,994 --> 00:24:50,927
Even the top predators, the
alligators, are potential prey.

467
00:24:56,094 --> 00:24:58,160
It may be a long distant echo

468
00:24:58,194 --> 00:25:02,094
of how Jon's giant snake
once terrorized Cerrejon.

469
00:25:03,627 --> 00:25:05,660
There are other snakes here, too,

470
00:25:05,694 --> 00:25:08,827
like the eastern diamondback,
a venomous rattlesnake.

471
00:25:10,594 --> 00:25:14,227
Be aware, you're in eastern
diamondback territory as well.

472
00:25:14,260 --> 00:25:15,527
Okay.

473
00:25:16,927 --> 00:25:18,827
We've got some
saw grass here, so watch...

474
00:25:18,860 --> 00:25:20,260
I see that.

475
00:25:20,294 --> 00:25:23,060
...Watch your face
as you pile through.

476
00:25:23,094 --> 00:25:26,694
See, there's a lot of
really good cover in here.

477
00:25:26,727 --> 00:25:29,160
They're so hard to spot.

478
00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:32,560
Snakes are the snipers
of the animal world.

479
00:25:33,660 --> 00:25:37,194
First, find a good place for an ambush.

480
00:25:38,694 --> 00:25:41,694
Modern or ancient, small or giant,

481
00:25:41,727 --> 00:25:44,127
every snake needs somewhere to hide.

482
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:45,994
Every once in a while
I hear a little scurrying,

483
00:25:46,027 --> 00:25:47,227
but I'm assuming those are just rodents.

484
00:25:47,260 --> 00:25:48,694
Yeah, a lot of rodents in here,

485
00:25:48,727 --> 00:25:51,927
all these rock piles and all this cover.

486
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,560
There could be a 16-foot Burm
right there,

487
00:25:54,594 --> 00:25:56,794
unless it moves or you just
happen to, you know,

488
00:25:56,827 --> 00:25:58,927
catch a little piece of it,

489
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:00,660
you'd never know it was there.

490
00:26:00,694 --> 00:26:01,860
Sure.

491
00:26:01,894 --> 00:26:04,694
It's a needle in the haystack.

492
00:26:04,727 --> 00:26:06,360
Camouflage and concealment

493
00:26:06,394 --> 00:26:09,560
are part of the snake's arsenal.

494
00:26:09,594 --> 00:26:11,594
Their prey may move faster,

495
00:26:11,627 --> 00:26:16,727
so they must catch it by the
speed of their initial strike.

496
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:18,894
Jon, look over here.

497
00:26:18,927 --> 00:26:21,627
Yeah, that's python, no doubt.

498
00:26:21,660 --> 00:26:23,694
Over there.

499
00:26:23,727 --> 00:26:25,594
That's a good sized snake.

500
00:26:25,627 --> 00:26:28,027
This is not the whole thing,
but it's definitely a snake.

501
00:26:28,060 --> 00:26:29,260
That's got me excited now.

502
00:26:29,294 --> 00:26:31,627
Oh, now you believe me
that there are pythons here.

503
00:26:31,660 --> 00:26:33,627
They're here. Okay.

504
00:26:33,660 --> 00:26:34,994
See if we can find a live one.

505
00:26:35,027 --> 00:26:36,294
Alright.

506
00:26:36,327 --> 00:26:37,860
I see, there's the fossil hunter in you,

507
00:26:37,894 --> 00:26:39,694
you're still looking for...

508
00:26:39,727 --> 00:26:41,660
Yeah, this is the kind of
thing I'm used to looking for.

509
00:26:41,694 --> 00:26:43,927
You're still looking for the dead stuff.

510
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,294
I can appreciate that.

511
00:26:46,327 --> 00:26:47,927
Like a modern snake,

512
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,660
the Cerrejon monster's forked
tongue is a crucial organ,

513
00:26:51,694 --> 00:26:54,360
sensing the world around it.

514
00:26:54,394 --> 00:26:57,360
The fork in the tongue makes
its surface area bigger

515
00:26:57,394 --> 00:26:59,294
and more sensitive.

516
00:26:59,327 --> 00:27:02,360
It may help snakes to detect
the direction of prey

517
00:27:02,394 --> 00:27:04,094
and other items of interest,

518
00:27:04,127 --> 00:27:08,960
all the while staying hidden
in the undergrowth.

519
00:27:11,194 --> 00:27:13,194
Oh, something?

520
00:27:13,227 --> 00:27:14,660
Like I say,

521
00:27:14,694 --> 00:27:17,794
you'd almost have to step on it,
you know.

522
00:27:17,827 --> 00:27:19,227
Something moved in there.

523
00:27:19,260 --> 00:27:20,094
You hear something?

524
00:27:20,127 --> 00:27:21,594
I did.

525
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,927
Might be easier to find
a 58-million-year-old animal,

526
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:28,894
doesn't run from you, huh?

527
00:27:41,894 --> 00:27:43,994
The search continues.

528
00:27:45,394 --> 00:27:49,694
The everglades national park
is 2,300 square Miles

529
00:27:49,727 --> 00:27:52,160
of land and water.

530
00:27:53,660 --> 00:27:55,260
The Burmese pythons have penetrated

531
00:27:55,294 --> 00:28:00,794
deep into these wetlands, by
swimming from island to island.

532
00:28:03,660 --> 00:28:05,694
But the snake hunters' persistence

533
00:28:05,727 --> 00:28:08,660
will shortly pay off.

534
00:28:08,694 --> 00:28:11,860
Jon Bloch is about
to see first-hand

535
00:28:11,894 --> 00:28:15,827
what constrictors are capable of.

536
00:28:15,860 --> 00:28:17,094
Oh, right there, Jon, Jon, Jon.

537
00:28:17,127 --> 00:28:20,594
Oh, God, look at that's huge.

538
00:28:20,627 --> 00:28:23,194
That's a big snake.

539
00:28:23,227 --> 00:28:24,827
So you're gonna grab it by the tail?

540
00:28:24,860 --> 00:28:27,727
Yeah, we'll walk her back and, oh, yeah.

541
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:28,594
Uh-huh.

542
00:28:28,627 --> 00:28:29,960
Not happy.

543
00:28:29,994 --> 00:28:30,960
Now that's the difference between these.

544
00:28:30,994 --> 00:28:32,627
This thing's strong.

545
00:28:32,660 --> 00:28:34,560
That's the difference between
these in captivity

546
00:28:34,594 --> 00:28:39,960
and these wild caught ones,
is not happy right now.

547
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,694
So the whole game on this,
so now she knows...

548
00:28:44,727 --> 00:28:46,560
Oh, that's a bad area.

549
00:28:46,594 --> 00:28:48,827
Though the python kills by constriction

550
00:28:48,860 --> 00:28:50,827
and does not inject poison,

551
00:28:50,860 --> 00:28:53,194
it still has a ferocious bite
to grab its prey.

552
00:28:53,227 --> 00:28:55,694
That's a younger Burmese python.

553
00:28:55,727 --> 00:28:57,694
It'll be a second, she'll
realize you're back there, huh?

554
00:28:57,727 --> 00:28:58,760
She wants to go, go, go,

555
00:28:58,794 --> 00:28:59,960
and she's being restrained.

556
00:28:59,994 --> 00:29:01,894
Once the prey is in range,

557
00:29:01,927 --> 00:29:05,560
the snake launches itself
like a heat-seeking missile.

558
00:29:06,627 --> 00:29:07,760
Oh, yeah.

559
00:29:07,794 --> 00:29:09,260
There we go. Nice.

560
00:29:09,294 --> 00:29:10,594
Okay, sweetie.

561
00:29:10,627 --> 00:29:11,560
Okay.

562
00:29:11,594 --> 00:29:13,260
Switch hands. Yeah.

563
00:29:13,294 --> 00:29:14,827
Beautiful.

564
00:29:14,860 --> 00:29:16,794
- She's not happy.
- No, she's not.

565
00:29:16,827 --> 00:29:17,894
Not happy, but if you can do me a favor

566
00:29:17,927 --> 00:29:18,960
and grab that tail?

567
00:29:18,994 --> 00:29:19,927
Yeah.

568
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:21,327
She's gonna musk.

569
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,060
No, keep it back,
keep it back, keep it back.

570
00:29:24,294 --> 00:29:27,194
That's what they do
as a defense mechanism.

571
00:29:27,227 --> 00:29:30,627
The snake sees Jon as a predator.

572
00:29:30,660 --> 00:29:32,094
Its instinctive reaction

573
00:29:32,127 --> 00:29:35,294
is to squirt the contents
of its bowels all over him.

574
00:29:35,327 --> 00:29:37,194
They're going to musk,
they're gonna, you know,

575
00:29:37,227 --> 00:29:39,627
evacuate their bowels
on a would-be predator.

576
00:29:39,660 --> 00:29:40,960
Okay.

577
00:29:40,994 --> 00:29:42,627
And that's enough to get anybody to say,

578
00:29:42,660 --> 00:29:44,294
I don't know if I want to
eat this thing or not.

579
00:29:44,327 --> 00:29:45,660
But let's unwind her.

580
00:29:45,694 --> 00:29:46,694
Okay.

581
00:29:46,727 --> 00:29:48,594
Just here.

582
00:29:48,627 --> 00:29:49,560
Yeah.

583
00:29:49,594 --> 00:29:50,860
Oh, she's heavy.

584
00:29:50,894 --> 00:29:52,027
She's powerful, isn't she?

585
00:29:52,060 --> 00:29:53,694
Yeah.

586
00:29:53,727 --> 00:29:55,760
She also has recurved teeth.

587
00:29:55,794 --> 00:29:57,360
Oh, did she get you?

588
00:29:57,394 --> 00:29:59,827
Yeah, just one little
Nick and you see, you know,

589
00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:03,160
the teeth are pretty sharp,
like hypodermic needles.

590
00:30:03,194 --> 00:30:05,827
The ancient snake's recurved teeth

591
00:30:05,860 --> 00:30:08,094
lock on to its prey.

592
00:30:08,127 --> 00:30:11,760
The more the prey struggles,
the deeper the teeth go.

593
00:30:11,794 --> 00:30:14,227
The bite is really
just to secure the prey.

594
00:30:14,260 --> 00:30:18,294
So the snake is gonna obviously strike,

595
00:30:18,327 --> 00:30:19,894
bite the prey item,

596
00:30:19,927 --> 00:30:23,960
and literally get it secure
in its jaws and then constrict.

597
00:30:23,994 --> 00:30:26,860
60 million years ago, as today,

598
00:30:26,894 --> 00:30:29,960
the constrictor throws
coils around its victim

599
00:30:29,994 --> 00:30:31,527
and crushes it.

600
00:30:32,827 --> 00:30:35,627
Constriction is unique to snakes.

601
00:30:36,860 --> 00:30:39,360
Jon's getting his first view of it.

602
00:30:39,394 --> 00:30:40,560
She's got a pretty good lock on my arm.

603
00:30:40,594 --> 00:30:41,827
Yeah, I can see that.

604
00:30:41,860 --> 00:30:42,994
We need to get her in a bag,

605
00:30:43,027 --> 00:30:44,694
I think my hand might be turning purple.

606
00:30:44,727 --> 00:30:45,960
When you're handling snakes,

607
00:30:45,994 --> 00:30:49,060
sometimes they then start
constricting your arm.

608
00:30:49,094 --> 00:30:51,660
And it's when they do that,
that you actually realize,

609
00:30:51,694 --> 00:30:54,660
wow, these snakes are just
incredibly powerful,

610
00:30:54,694 --> 00:30:56,627
a muscle machine, if you like.

611
00:30:58,594 --> 00:30:59,927
A constrictor this size

612
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:04,594
can exert a pressure of
30 pounds per square inch.

613
00:31:04,627 --> 00:31:05,860
On the human chest,

614
00:31:05,894 --> 00:31:09,594
it's equivalent to being crushed
by a small car.

615
00:31:11,627 --> 00:31:12,860
As snakes get bigger,

616
00:31:12,894 --> 00:31:15,560
their muscles generate ever more force,

617
00:31:15,594 --> 00:31:18,960
and they can throw more loops
around their prey.

618
00:31:18,994 --> 00:31:20,560
If I was a prey item,

619
00:31:20,594 --> 00:31:24,227
she would constrict me until
she constricted me so much,

620
00:31:24,260 --> 00:31:26,794
there was vasoconstriction
constriction, and my heart

621
00:31:26,827 --> 00:31:28,727
would literally almost explode,

622
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,594
because, you know, it just stops it,

623
00:31:30,627 --> 00:31:33,560
and there's so much pressure
on your circulatory system,

624
00:31:33,594 --> 00:31:35,660
as well as suffocating you as well,

625
00:31:35,694 --> 00:31:37,694
you know, the prey item gets suffocated.

626
00:31:39,027 --> 00:31:41,127
Constriction is so effective

627
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,527
that snakes can take on
the largest prey.

628
00:31:45,794 --> 00:31:49,060
In Cerrejon, 60 million years ago,

629
00:31:49,094 --> 00:31:52,227
it would have been
a battle of the giants.

630
00:31:53,594 --> 00:31:56,194
Magnificent.

631
00:31:56,227 --> 00:31:58,294
I don't know how you don't
look at this and not go, "wow."

632
00:31:58,327 --> 00:31:59,327
No, it's gorgeous.

633
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:00,960
Truly a gorgeous animal.

634
00:32:00,994 --> 00:32:03,560
But this is gonna come
out of this habitat.

635
00:32:03,594 --> 00:32:06,227
We have to remove it,
it doesn't belong here.

636
00:32:06,260 --> 00:32:07,894
Well, that can be useful
for us, because...

637
00:32:07,927 --> 00:32:09,994
Despite Shawn's best efforts,

638
00:32:10,027 --> 00:32:15,094
it's an ongoing battle to keep
the pythons in check.

639
00:32:15,127 --> 00:32:19,060
The most effective control
so far has been cold winters.

640
00:32:19,094 --> 00:32:21,127
Big snakes need heat to thrive

641
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,694
and are vulnerable to low temperatures,

642
00:32:23,727 --> 00:32:25,860
a phenomenon that may become relevant

643
00:32:25,894 --> 00:32:29,560
in explaining why the giant
snakes at Cerrejon died out.

644
00:32:29,594 --> 00:32:31,360
Big female.

645
00:32:31,394 --> 00:32:34,627
But for now, there are
more immediate questions.

646
00:32:36,660 --> 00:32:38,060
The initial evidence suggests

647
00:32:38,094 --> 00:32:41,994
the Cerrejon snake was
the biggest that's ever lived.

648
00:32:45,727 --> 00:32:48,694
But precisely how big

649
00:32:48,727 --> 00:32:50,594
and what type?

650
00:32:54,994 --> 00:32:58,560
In the Florida lab, Jason head
is narrowing the options

651
00:32:58,594 --> 00:33:00,594
by comparing the Cerrejon fossil

652
00:33:00,627 --> 00:33:03,094
with vertebrae from living snakes.

653
00:33:04,594 --> 00:33:07,160
The final choice comes down to a python

654
00:33:07,194 --> 00:33:10,060
or a group of
so-call boid snakes,

655
00:33:10,094 --> 00:33:13,560
that includes boas and anacondas.

656
00:33:13,594 --> 00:33:14,860
If we compare the fossil

657
00:33:14,894 --> 00:33:17,194
with the vertebra of this living python,

658
00:33:17,227 --> 00:33:18,627
what we can see is that

659
00:33:18,660 --> 00:33:21,060
they're actually very similar
to each other.

660
00:33:21,094 --> 00:33:23,627
However, there is a key feature
of the fossil.

661
00:33:23,660 --> 00:33:26,360
Specifically, these two holes

662
00:33:26,394 --> 00:33:29,327
that we see on either side of
the vertebra right here,

663
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,294
that are not present in pythons.

664
00:33:32,327 --> 00:33:34,627
Having eliminated pythons,

665
00:33:34,660 --> 00:33:36,594
Jason knows what type of constrictor

666
00:33:36,627 --> 00:33:40,094
the Cerrejon giant must have been.

667
00:33:40,127 --> 00:33:41,294
It actually shared characters

668
00:33:41,327 --> 00:33:42,827
with boa constrictors,

669
00:33:42,860 --> 00:33:44,760
suggesting that they're closely
related to each other,

670
00:33:44,794 --> 00:33:47,327
despite being very different in size.

671
00:33:48,860 --> 00:33:51,560
The Cerrejon snake
was a gigantic relative

672
00:33:51,594 --> 00:33:53,760
of boas and anacondas,

673
00:33:53,794 --> 00:33:56,794
snakes that are still alive
in South America today,

674
00:33:56,827 --> 00:33:58,294
though a fraction of the size

675
00:33:58,327 --> 00:34:01,660
of their 60-million-year-old
forebear.

676
00:34:04,194 --> 00:34:07,060
Calculating the Cerrejon
monster's exact size

677
00:34:07,094 --> 00:34:10,860
requires an ingenious and
painstaking set of calculations

678
00:34:10,894 --> 00:34:14,294
from the vertebrae the team had
collected back in Cerrejon.

679
00:34:14,327 --> 00:34:16,360
In order to tell how large a snake is,

680
00:34:16,394 --> 00:34:19,660
you have to know what part of
the body the bone is from

681
00:34:19,694 --> 00:34:20,794
within the vertebral column.

682
00:34:20,827 --> 00:34:22,227
And the reason for that

683
00:34:22,260 --> 00:34:25,660
is because within the same exact
skeleton of a snake,

684
00:34:25,694 --> 00:34:29,660
you can have very small ones
and very large ones,

685
00:34:29,694 --> 00:34:32,194
depending on where you are
in the position.

686
00:34:32,227 --> 00:34:33,694
The first question is

687
00:34:33,727 --> 00:34:35,794
how to work out where
the fossil vertebra lay

688
00:34:35,827 --> 00:34:39,294
in the giant snake's spinal column.

689
00:34:39,327 --> 00:34:42,694
David Polly of Indiana
University in Bloomington

690
00:34:42,727 --> 00:34:46,660
is drafted in to make
a mathematical model.

691
00:34:46,694 --> 00:34:49,027
The first clue is the minute changes

692
00:34:49,060 --> 00:34:51,160
in the shape of a snake's vertebrae,

693
00:34:51,194 --> 00:34:54,094
which depend on where they're situated.

694
00:34:54,127 --> 00:34:55,760
One of the things about snakes,

695
00:34:55,794 --> 00:34:58,627
even though they look like
they're a long tube,

696
00:34:58,660 --> 00:35:01,827
they do different things with their neck

697
00:35:01,860 --> 00:35:03,594
and with their body and with their tail.

698
00:35:03,627 --> 00:35:06,227
Sometimes they strike, and
sometimes they're slithering.

699
00:35:06,260 --> 00:35:09,194
So they've got lots
of different muscles.

700
00:35:09,227 --> 00:35:12,594
It is these muscles
that dictate the tiny differences

701
00:35:12,627 --> 00:35:16,094
in each vertebra's shape and proportion.

702
00:35:16,127 --> 00:35:17,660
As you go from the head of the snake

703
00:35:17,694 --> 00:35:19,060
to the tail of the snake,

704
00:35:19,094 --> 00:35:21,194
you get different lengths
of these projections

705
00:35:21,227 --> 00:35:23,094
and different proportions.

706
00:35:23,127 --> 00:35:25,627
For his model, David Polly first creates

707
00:35:25,660 --> 00:35:29,694
a mathematical map of
the Cerrejon vertebra.

708
00:35:29,727 --> 00:35:31,327
His ultimate aim is to work out

709
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,594
exactly where it fits
in the snake's body.

710
00:35:35,627 --> 00:35:37,960
So what we're looking at here

711
00:35:37,994 --> 00:35:41,360
is a stylized representation of this.

712
00:35:41,394 --> 00:35:47,560
This point here is this point,
this point is the top up here,

713
00:35:47,594 --> 00:35:49,327
and these, this down here.

714
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,660
So this represents the shape
of this particular vertebra.

715
00:35:52,694 --> 00:35:54,327
Then, the shape and gradient

716
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,160
of hundreds of vertebrae
in modern boid snakes

717
00:35:57,194 --> 00:36:01,627
from every part of the body are
also entered into the model.

718
00:36:01,660 --> 00:36:06,160
Finally, the Cerrejon vertebra
is matched against them.

719
00:36:06,194 --> 00:36:07,760
What we did mathematically

720
00:36:07,794 --> 00:36:11,627
was we took this gradient
from one to the other

721
00:36:11,660 --> 00:36:13,827
in all of the snakes

722
00:36:13,860 --> 00:36:15,760
and found where it matched best

723
00:36:15,794 --> 00:36:19,094
as you went from the front to the back.

724
00:36:19,127 --> 00:36:21,694
We could then measure
the shape on this vertebra

725
00:36:21,727 --> 00:36:23,827
and then with some degree of likelihood,

726
00:36:23,860 --> 00:36:29,760
be able to place it within
some position in the body.

727
00:36:29,794 --> 00:36:31,627
It's a fairly simple idea,

728
00:36:31,660 --> 00:36:33,927
but it actually takes
quite a bit of work

729
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,660
and took us the greater part
of a year to do.

730
00:36:37,694 --> 00:36:40,794
With the ancient fossil
embedded into the snake map,

731
00:36:40,827 --> 00:36:42,694
it is now possible to reconstruct

732
00:36:42,727 --> 00:36:44,894
the size of the snake.

733
00:36:46,894 --> 00:36:48,994
In the courtyard of the Florida museum,

734
00:36:49,027 --> 00:36:53,127
Jon Bloch and Jason head are
ready for the big revelation.

735
00:36:54,727 --> 00:36:56,794
Where would this go,
do you think, in the body?

736
00:36:56,827 --> 00:36:59,260
So that specimen would be
just over halfway

737
00:36:59,294 --> 00:37:00,627
between the head and the tail,

738
00:37:00,660 --> 00:37:03,260
so just about here.

739
00:37:03,294 --> 00:37:04,827
Okay.

740
00:37:04,860 --> 00:37:07,894
The result is awe inspiring.

741
00:37:16,260 --> 00:37:18,860
The longest modern snake,
the reticulated python,

742
00:37:18,894 --> 00:37:21,227
measures 28 feet.

743
00:37:21,260 --> 00:37:26,027
The biggest previous fossil
snake, Gigantophis... 33 feet.

744
00:37:28,127 --> 00:37:32,227
The Cerrejon snake smashes the record.

745
00:37:32,260 --> 00:37:34,794
48 feet long,

746
00:37:34,827 --> 00:37:38,760
it is the longest snake
in world history.

747
00:37:38,794 --> 00:37:39,727
That's a big snake.

748
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:41,794
This is a huge snake.

749
00:37:41,827 --> 00:37:45,060
This is just the first
specimen from Cerrejon.

750
00:37:46,394 --> 00:37:50,260
There could be even
longer snakes out there.

751
00:37:50,294 --> 00:37:52,627
And further mysteries remain.

752
00:37:52,660 --> 00:37:55,694
How did it live?
What did it eat?

753
00:37:55,727 --> 00:37:57,660
What did it really look like?

754
00:37:57,694 --> 00:38:02,694
Above all, how could it possibly
have grown so big?

755
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,560
It's time to name it.

756
00:38:11,594 --> 00:38:14,960
To reflect its ancestry,
as well as its enormity,

757
00:38:14,994 --> 00:38:18,560
it will be called Titanoboa,

758
00:38:18,594 --> 00:38:21,527
a boa of Titanic proportions.

759
00:38:22,894 --> 00:38:25,794
In honor of the Colombian mine
where it was found,

760
00:38:25,827 --> 00:38:30,860
its full name...
Titanoboa Cerrejonensis.

761
00:38:30,894 --> 00:38:34,960
With its credentials proved,
titanoboa can be launched,

762
00:38:34,994 --> 00:38:38,594
a creature to make headlines
and capture the imagination

763
00:38:38,627 --> 00:38:43,127
of the scientific, phobic
and expert across the world.

764
00:38:45,327 --> 00:38:48,294
Wow, you know,
this is an amazing animal.

765
00:38:48,327 --> 00:38:50,560
It's just one of those things
that you know

766
00:38:50,594 --> 00:38:52,060
you're not gonna have happen

767
00:38:52,094 --> 00:38:53,894
that many times in your lifetime.

768
00:38:53,927 --> 00:38:56,894
Finally, snakes are on the map.

769
00:38:56,927 --> 00:39:00,594
Many people's reaction is
just sort of that of horror.

770
00:39:02,827 --> 00:39:04,960
There's a certain fear of snakes
that exists out there,

771
00:39:04,994 --> 00:39:06,327
and I think for a lot of people

772
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,827
that's sort of the root
of the fascination.

773
00:39:08,860 --> 00:39:11,294
To fully comprehend titanoboa,

774
00:39:11,327 --> 00:39:14,594
it needs, somehow, to be seen.

775
00:39:16,694 --> 00:39:18,560
Snakes are not just bones,

776
00:39:18,594 --> 00:39:21,027
there's also flesh on those bones.

777
00:39:21,060 --> 00:39:23,094
At Indiana university, Bloomington,

778
00:39:23,127 --> 00:39:27,694
a snake is coming under
a highly expert knife.

779
00:39:27,727 --> 00:39:30,127
Matt Rowe used to be a Sushi chef,

780
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,860
now his skills are unveiling
the complete snake.

781
00:39:35,194 --> 00:39:39,594
The meat, a delicacy
in many exotic cuisines.

782
00:39:39,627 --> 00:39:44,627
The skin, used for ladies'
handbags, belts and boots.

783
00:39:44,660 --> 00:39:47,194
But the most striking thing
Matt can reveal

784
00:39:47,227 --> 00:39:49,560
is how much larger a snake becomes

785
00:39:49,594 --> 00:39:52,694
when its bones are fleshed out.

786
00:39:52,727 --> 00:39:54,094
Alright.

787
00:39:54,127 --> 00:39:57,060
So this is the vertebra inside
of the cross-section here.

788
00:39:57,094 --> 00:39:59,694
It's a little bit difficult
to see at this point,

789
00:39:59,727 --> 00:40:01,127
because they're relatively small

790
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,094
in comparison to the size
of the cross-section,

791
00:40:04,127 --> 00:40:07,360
and you can see the centrum
of the vertebra here.

792
00:40:07,394 --> 00:40:10,027
In our research, in
the dissections that we've done,

793
00:40:10,060 --> 00:40:12,627
the size of the vertebra
in comparison to the snake

794
00:40:12,660 --> 00:40:14,327
has always surprised me,

795
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,760
in the sense that
they are always much smaller

796
00:40:18,794 --> 00:40:20,660
than I would think.

797
00:40:20,694 --> 00:40:22,294
As you can see here,

798
00:40:22,327 --> 00:40:24,627
a small vertebra does not
necessarily indicate

799
00:40:24,660 --> 00:40:26,160
a small snake.

800
00:40:27,727 --> 00:40:29,027
In some big living snakes,

801
00:40:29,060 --> 00:40:32,227
the ribs are about five inches long.

802
00:40:32,260 --> 00:40:34,927
Scaled up to the Cerrejon giant snake,

803
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,660
the ribs must have been
more like two feet long,

804
00:40:38,694 --> 00:40:42,894
with a wall of muscle strong
enough to crush a rhinoceros.

805
00:40:48,227 --> 00:40:51,260
To recreate the full glory of titanoboa,

806
00:40:51,294 --> 00:40:53,827
a Canadian model maker, Kevin Hockley,

807
00:40:53,860 --> 00:40:56,227
is drafted into the team.

808
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,794
He's commissioned to build
a life-size replica.

809
00:41:01,827 --> 00:41:05,160
His previous life-size creations
include two animals

810
00:41:05,194 --> 00:41:08,794
that also once seemed the stuff
of myth and fantasy,

811
00:41:08,827 --> 00:41:12,594
but are monstrously
alive and well today...

812
00:41:12,627 --> 00:41:16,360
A narwhal and a giant squid.

813
00:41:16,394 --> 00:41:22,360
Titanoboa, though long dead,
will overwhelm even them.

814
00:41:22,394 --> 00:41:23,594
It's a huge snake

815
00:41:23,627 --> 00:41:25,294
and bigger than any living snake

816
00:41:25,327 --> 00:41:28,827
and certainly bigger than any
snake that I've made to date.

817
00:41:28,860 --> 00:41:30,927
And the other challenge was,

818
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,194
there's only a few actual
fossils of the bones,

819
00:41:34,227 --> 00:41:37,694
so we're going by
a scientist's speculation

820
00:41:37,727 --> 00:41:41,560
as to what it actually looked like.

821
00:41:41,594 --> 00:41:43,794
One key part is missing...

822
00:41:43,827 --> 00:41:46,694
A fossil of Titanoboa's skull.

823
00:41:46,727 --> 00:41:49,027
Kevin is starting his model
from the tail end,

824
00:41:49,060 --> 00:41:52,994
in the hope that Jason head and
his colleagues will find one.

825
00:41:53,027 --> 00:41:55,960
He's a biologically realistic model.

826
00:41:55,994 --> 00:41:57,594
Only with the head in place

827
00:41:57,627 --> 00:42:01,260
will we know exactly
how titanoboa looked.

828
00:42:01,294 --> 00:42:04,194
And it gives you both
the biology and the fear factor,

829
00:42:04,227 --> 00:42:08,227
the punch, that would
get people interested.

830
00:42:08,260 --> 00:42:11,560
Back at Cerrejon, the
fossil hunters scour the mine

831
00:42:11,594 --> 00:42:13,660
for the skull bones whose fragility

832
00:42:13,694 --> 00:42:16,527
makes them so elusive and rare.

833
00:42:17,860 --> 00:42:19,960
They know a headless snake

834
00:42:19,994 --> 00:42:23,127
will always be a story without an end.

835
00:42:25,694 --> 00:42:28,194
And other mysteries remain...

836
00:42:28,227 --> 00:42:30,294
What did titanoboa eat?

837
00:42:30,327 --> 00:42:33,360
How did it hunt and reproduce?

838
00:42:33,394 --> 00:42:37,527
One place on today's earth
can provide some clues.

839
00:42:40,627 --> 00:42:43,860
The flooded grasslands of
the Venezuelan llanos.

840
00:42:53,827 --> 00:42:55,894
Here, the average temperature

841
00:42:55,927 --> 00:42:59,160
is more than a sweltering 80 degrees.

842
00:43:02,894 --> 00:43:04,994
Though this is not a rainforest,

843
00:43:05,027 --> 00:43:08,360
the similarity of the animals
in these sultry wetlands

844
00:43:08,394 --> 00:43:11,860
makes it almost a mini Cerrejon.

845
00:43:11,894 --> 00:43:14,560
Turtles and caiman flourish,

846
00:43:14,594 --> 00:43:15,760
and alongside them,

847
00:43:15,794 --> 00:43:19,294
an animal with similar habits
to titanoboa,

848
00:43:19,327 --> 00:43:23,227
the heaviest snake
in the modern world...

849
00:43:23,260 --> 00:43:26,660
The green anaconda.

850
00:43:26,694 --> 00:43:30,594
Jesus Rivas is the leading
authority on the anaconda.

851
00:43:30,627 --> 00:43:32,227
He spent 20 years in these wetlands,

852
00:43:32,260 --> 00:43:35,694
studying them close up
and what they like to eat,

853
00:43:35,727 --> 00:43:37,527
like this turtle.

854
00:43:38,894 --> 00:43:42,094
Wow, it's a monster!

855
00:43:42,127 --> 00:43:44,927
Titanoboa may have
been 10 times as heavy,

856
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,560
but Jesus believes the anaconda
gives the best possible insight

857
00:43:48,594 --> 00:43:49,860
into its world.

858
00:43:51,660 --> 00:43:53,694
Most boas live in trees,

859
00:43:53,727 --> 00:43:56,560
an unlikely move for titanoboa.

860
00:43:56,594 --> 00:44:00,860
So the anaconda, also one of
the boid group of snakes,

861
00:44:00,894 --> 00:44:04,060
offers the best comparison.

862
00:44:04,094 --> 00:44:07,894
Titanoboa is an aquatic, tropical snake

863
00:44:07,927 --> 00:44:09,894
that is very related to anaconda.

864
00:44:09,927 --> 00:44:14,027
I can't think of a closer model
of standard snakes

865
00:44:14,060 --> 00:44:19,260
to understand what titanoboa
was like than living anacondas.

866
00:44:21,060 --> 00:44:25,294
Jesus walks these
snake-infested swamplands barefoot,

867
00:44:25,327 --> 00:44:28,860
so he can feel reptiles he can't see.

868
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:34,227
There are leeches, stingrays,
caiman, crocs, and piranhas

869
00:44:34,260 --> 00:44:36,294
in his path.

870
00:44:36,327 --> 00:44:37,860
But it's worth it

871
00:44:37,894 --> 00:44:41,994
to get to grips with these
magnificent but shy creatures.

872
00:44:44,660 --> 00:44:50,027
Suddenly, Jesus feels a familiar
slithery presence underfoot.

873
00:44:50,060 --> 00:44:52,060
Got something for ya.

874
00:44:54,694 --> 00:44:56,260
Okay, got you.

875
00:45:00,327 --> 00:45:02,627
Jesus has found anacondas

876
00:45:02,660 --> 00:45:04,794
measuring a massive 18 feet.

877
00:45:04,827 --> 00:45:06,894
Just like they're three and a half.

878
00:45:06,927 --> 00:45:09,160
He knows that dry land is their enemy.

879
00:45:09,194 --> 00:45:10,160
Okay.

880
00:45:10,194 --> 00:45:12,227
Something that must have also been true

881
00:45:12,260 --> 00:45:13,694
for titanoboa.

882
00:45:13,727 --> 00:45:16,127
I don't think titanoboa,
being that large,

883
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,194
would have been very easy
to crawl through dry land,

884
00:45:19,227 --> 00:45:21,694
maybe for very short time.

885
00:45:24,227 --> 00:45:27,960
Titanoboa weighed as much as 20 people.

886
00:45:27,994 --> 00:45:31,627
Movement on land was a constant
fight with gravity.

887
00:45:34,327 --> 00:45:37,794
Like the anaconda, its friend was water,

888
00:45:37,827 --> 00:45:42,127
where it becomes effectively
weightless and faster.

889
00:45:44,827 --> 00:45:47,027
Today's snake habitat in Venezuela

890
00:45:47,060 --> 00:45:50,760
reinforces the evidence
that Titanoboa's kingdom

891
00:45:50,794 --> 00:45:53,960
was a rainforest water world.

892
00:45:53,994 --> 00:45:56,194
And this is a very large,

893
00:45:56,227 --> 00:45:58,760
either a slow-moving
river system,

894
00:45:58,794 --> 00:46:01,327
or kind of a backwater of
a major river system.

895
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,594
So what we have is a big, wet
landscape full of water

896
00:46:04,627 --> 00:46:07,127
with a lot of aquatic snakes in it.

897
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:11,827
On land, Titanoboa's
weight is suffocating it.

898
00:46:11,860 --> 00:46:15,794
Sliding into the water,
it is coming home.

899
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:23,794
In this ideal environment,

900
00:46:23,827 --> 00:46:26,694
it becomes the ruling predator,

901
00:46:26,727 --> 00:46:28,594
a lurking killer.

902
00:46:29,894 --> 00:46:32,360
Despite their lack of legs or fins,

903
00:46:32,394 --> 00:46:34,694
snakes are natural swimmers,

904
00:46:34,727 --> 00:46:36,094
faster than humans.

905
00:46:37,594 --> 00:46:40,327
The secret is their flexible spines.

906
00:46:42,227 --> 00:46:45,227
They turn themselves
into a fluid "s" shape,

907
00:46:45,260 --> 00:46:48,660
using their whole body
to carve through the water.

908
00:46:49,927 --> 00:46:52,127
The anacondas of the Venezuelan llanos

909
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:55,860
are the nearest living echo
of the long lost snake

910
00:46:55,894 --> 00:46:58,594
and the world it dominated.

911
00:46:58,627 --> 00:47:01,960
And to get even closer to
their extraordinary discovery,

912
00:47:01,994 --> 00:47:06,294
the scientists must encounter
the anaconda face to face.

913
00:47:07,994 --> 00:47:11,627
But they won't give up
their secrets without a fight.

914
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:17,794
Jon Bloch and Jason head,

915
00:47:17,827 --> 00:47:20,060
experts in the prehistoric world,

916
00:47:20,094 --> 00:47:23,827
land in the Venezuelan llanos,
close to the equator.

917
00:47:33,060 --> 00:47:35,860
It's oppressively hot and humid.

918
00:47:37,660 --> 00:47:39,327
Hell for humans,

919
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:43,260
paradise for the biggest snakes
on today's earth.

920
00:47:47,694 --> 00:47:50,960
Jon and Jason have come
in search of the green anaconda,

921
00:47:50,994 --> 00:47:54,094
which thrives in this steaming swamp.

922
00:47:55,594 --> 00:47:58,627
The anaconda's lifestyle is
the closest they can find

923
00:47:58,660 --> 00:48:01,127
to the giant snake, titanoboa,

924
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,927
which flourished in Colombia
60 million years ago

925
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,694
in the lost world of Cerrejon.

926
00:48:08,727 --> 00:48:10,594
Their guide is Jesus Rivas,

927
00:48:10,627 --> 00:48:14,960
the world's leading expert
on the green anaconda.

928
00:48:14,994 --> 00:48:18,627
He shows the new arrivals
that the best way to find one

929
00:48:18,660 --> 00:48:21,860
is to feel for it with bare feet.

930
00:48:21,894 --> 00:48:23,794
Alarmingly, he can also tell them

931
00:48:23,827 --> 00:48:27,960
that anacondas can be lethal,
even for humans.

932
00:48:27,994 --> 00:48:31,827
An anaconda is potentially
a danger for a person

933
00:48:31,860 --> 00:48:33,827
because of the sheer size.

934
00:48:33,860 --> 00:48:36,027
They're generalist predators.

935
00:48:37,227 --> 00:48:39,827
As long as capacity of killing a person,

936
00:48:39,860 --> 00:48:42,560
definitely can kill a person.

937
00:48:42,594 --> 00:48:45,094
Anaconda mainly hunt in water,

938
00:48:45,127 --> 00:48:48,060
where they're hardest to spot.

939
00:48:48,094 --> 00:48:51,960
Just like titanoboa,
lurking beneath the surface,

940
00:48:51,994 --> 00:48:55,160
waiting for unsuspecting prey
to pass by.

941
00:48:56,827 --> 00:49:00,694
Dead still, heart, a silent murmur,

942
00:49:00,727 --> 00:49:03,827
holding its breath for up to 45 minutes.

943
00:49:05,894 --> 00:49:09,660
Waiting for the perfect prey

944
00:49:09,694 --> 00:49:11,994
until the moment comes.

945
00:49:18,627 --> 00:49:19,694
Oh, you got tagged.

946
00:49:19,727 --> 00:49:20,827
It's all right.

947
00:49:29,594 --> 00:49:30,760
He came out of nowhere,

948
00:49:30,794 --> 00:49:32,594
it was like the monster from the deep.

949
00:49:32,627 --> 00:49:36,260
Jon has suddenly become the target.

950
00:49:36,294 --> 00:49:38,294
Bad girl.

951
00:49:38,327 --> 00:49:42,060
Let it bleed, let it bleed.

952
00:49:42,094 --> 00:49:43,560
It hurt, there's no doubt it hurt,

953
00:49:43,594 --> 00:49:44,260
and it's bleeding a lot.

954
00:49:44,294 --> 00:49:45,260
Does it hurt a lot?

955
00:49:45,294 --> 00:49:47,327
We have band aids, so.

956
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:48,694
Is that normal to puff up like that?

957
00:49:48,727 --> 00:49:49,894
No.

958
00:49:49,927 --> 00:49:51,627
Probably need to put something over it.

959
00:49:51,660 --> 00:49:53,227
Jon will later find out

960
00:49:53,260 --> 00:49:57,894
the anaconda has left two
vicious teeth buried in his leg.

961
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,727
It saw him either as
potential prey or as a threat.

962
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:05,660
Welcome to the club!

963
00:50:05,694 --> 00:50:06,694
Oh, thank you.

964
00:50:08,227 --> 00:50:12,127
To Jesus, it's part of
everyday life in snake land.

965
00:50:13,727 --> 00:50:18,227
The anaconda that bit Jon
was relatively small fry.

966
00:50:18,260 --> 00:50:24,594
Even the largest anaconda here
would be dwarfed by titanoboa.

967
00:50:24,627 --> 00:50:26,694
Oh, my God, look.

968
00:50:26,727 --> 00:50:28,727
But whatever the difference in size,

969
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:31,127
they eat the same way.

970
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,360
Look how skinny he becomes.

971
00:50:33,394 --> 00:50:37,160
That looks like a Galapagos,
like a turtle.

972
00:50:37,194 --> 00:50:40,560
So there's an example of
an anaconda with a turtle in it,

973
00:50:40,594 --> 00:50:41,627
you think?

974
00:50:41,660 --> 00:50:42,660
That's right.

975
00:50:42,694 --> 00:50:44,127
That is pretty interesting,

976
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:48,260
so sideneck turtles,
just like we have in Cerrejon.

977
00:50:48,294 --> 00:50:50,560
The anaconda has swallowed a meal

978
00:50:50,594 --> 00:50:52,660
wider than its own body.

979
00:50:52,694 --> 00:50:54,294
Oh, look at that.

980
00:50:54,327 --> 00:50:55,760
Her tail looks fine.

981
00:50:55,794 --> 00:50:56,960
Okay.

982
00:50:56,994 --> 00:50:58,694
Not a catcher, sorry, girl.

983
00:50:58,727 --> 00:51:02,627
Look at this, look at the piece,
the chunk missing over here.

984
00:51:02,660 --> 00:51:04,794
Come on here, come on here,
look at the chunk of flesh.

985
00:51:04,827 --> 00:51:07,860
Jesus spots a wound
on the anaconda's side.

986
00:51:07,894 --> 00:51:09,960
It was inflicted by the prey.

987
00:51:09,994 --> 00:51:13,094
Maybe it's a baby Capybara.

988
00:51:13,127 --> 00:51:15,627
It's expensive for a snake
to take a meal.

989
00:51:15,660 --> 00:51:16,627
Yeah.

990
00:51:16,660 --> 00:51:20,694
On every hunt, a snake risks its life.

991
00:51:20,727 --> 00:51:23,294
It's kill or be killed.

992
00:51:23,327 --> 00:51:25,127
Okay, let's move around,
let's move away,

993
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:29,260
leave her address her meal,
we don't want her to lose it.

994
00:51:29,294 --> 00:51:31,860
The anaconda wants
some privacy and safety

995
00:51:31,894 --> 00:51:33,927
to digest its catch.

996
00:51:36,894 --> 00:51:40,227
These snakes don't stop at turtles.

997
00:51:40,260 --> 00:51:44,160
They also prey here on caiman,
a type of crocodile.

998
00:51:45,894 --> 00:51:49,694
Snakes have always been willing
to take on the largest prey,

999
00:51:49,727 --> 00:51:52,260
both now and 60 million years ago.

1000
00:51:53,694 --> 00:51:56,294
Is any animal safe from titanoboa

1001
00:51:56,327 --> 00:51:58,827
in Cerrejon's lost world?

1002
00:52:00,260 --> 00:52:04,094
Even the half ton blunt-nosed
crocodile is at risk...

1003
00:52:05,694 --> 00:52:09,527
...unable to escape the giant
snake's recurved teeth.

1004
00:52:11,594 --> 00:52:13,027
Crushed by coils of muscle,

1005
00:52:13,060 --> 00:52:16,760
delivering 400 pounds
per square inch of pressure.

1006
00:52:18,060 --> 00:52:20,694
Each time the crocodile's chest moves,

1007
00:52:20,727 --> 00:52:23,260
titanoboa tightens its grip.

1008
00:52:24,694 --> 00:52:27,760
Inducing unconsciousness,

1009
00:52:27,794 --> 00:52:30,760
then cutting off its victim's blood...

1010
00:52:32,127 --> 00:52:33,860
...until death.

1011
00:52:43,394 --> 00:52:45,560
There's movement in the water.

1012
00:52:47,694 --> 00:52:50,060
That's what we're here for.

1013
00:52:50,094 --> 00:52:52,594
What do you have?

1014
00:52:52,627 --> 00:52:53,727
Oh!

1015
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,360
This anaconda's
big enough to crush a human.

1016
00:52:58,394 --> 00:52:59,694
Woo!

1017
00:52:59,727 --> 00:53:02,594
She wants to give me a kiss,
look at that.

1018
00:53:02,627 --> 00:53:03,827
Or is it Jon you like?

1019
00:53:03,860 --> 00:53:05,927
Four human adults struggle

1020
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:10,227
to resist the massive, twisting
force of the snake's muscles.

1021
00:53:10,260 --> 00:53:11,760
She is...

1022
00:53:11,794 --> 00:53:12,927
Strong.

1023
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:14,627
Holding it behind the head

1024
00:53:14,660 --> 00:53:16,294
is the only way to make it safe...

1025
00:53:16,327 --> 00:53:18,160
Why won't you hold his ears?

1026
00:53:18,194 --> 00:53:21,060
...As head movement
controls the body's twisting.

1027
00:53:22,227 --> 00:53:25,627
This snake is big, powerful and hungry.

1028
00:53:25,660 --> 00:53:27,194
- Let me do that.
- I've got it.

1029
00:53:27,227 --> 00:53:28,694
Let me hold the first part.

1030
00:53:28,727 --> 00:53:32,660
This girl, this size
will feed on anything.

1031
00:53:32,694 --> 00:53:37,327
Small crocs, turtles, deer,
small children, anything.

1032
00:53:38,660 --> 00:53:39,927
So this is probably about the size

1033
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,727
of a juvenile titanoboa,
maybe about a year old?

1034
00:53:45,860 --> 00:53:49,027
How long do you reckon
this vertebrates are?

1035
00:53:49,060 --> 00:53:50,560
The vertebrae on this animal?

1036
00:53:50,594 --> 00:53:51,327
Yeah.

1037
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:52,460
Be about that wide.

1038
00:53:52,494 --> 00:53:54,594
Snakes keep growing
throughout their lives.

1039
00:53:54,627 --> 00:53:58,827
The bigger ones are the longest
lived and the most successful.

1040
00:53:58,860 --> 00:54:01,160
No, no, no, titanoboa is like that.

1041
00:54:01,194 --> 00:54:03,227
Given the size of this anaconda,

1042
00:54:03,260 --> 00:54:05,160
it seems almost unbelievable

1043
00:54:05,194 --> 00:54:08,594
that it's nothing
compared with titanoboa.

1044
00:54:08,627 --> 00:54:12,327
No, Titanoboa's probably
60, 70 centimeters wide.

1045
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:14,127
This snake looks like
she's got a diameter

1046
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,994
of about nine, maybe 10
centimeters at the widest point,

1047
00:54:19,027 --> 00:54:20,627
which is one-fifth
to one-seventh

1048
00:54:20,660 --> 00:54:22,694
the width of titanoboa.

1049
00:54:22,727 --> 00:54:25,827
This is a very skinny
snake for her size.

1050
00:54:25,860 --> 00:54:28,627
If she were nice and plump,

1051
00:54:28,660 --> 00:54:31,160
she would be probably 10 inches across.

1052
00:54:31,194 --> 00:54:32,294
Okay.

1053
00:54:32,327 --> 00:54:34,594
She probably gave birth last year,

1054
00:54:34,627 --> 00:54:36,027
for how skinny she is.

1055
00:54:36,060 --> 00:54:40,827
And she probably is aiming for
a Capybara or a good caiman

1056
00:54:40,860 --> 00:54:44,927
or something to make up
for the energy lost.

1057
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:46,894
This is as close
as the scientists can get

1058
00:54:46,927 --> 00:54:48,994
in the living snake world of today

1059
00:54:49,027 --> 00:54:51,760
to the lost world of titanoboa.

1060
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,660
Okay.

1061
00:54:56,694 --> 00:54:57,994
Let's go home.

1062
00:54:58,027 --> 00:55:00,660
The habitat and plants may be different,

1063
00:55:00,694 --> 00:55:02,927
and this is not a rainforest.

1064
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:10,794
But the similarities in the mix
of animals are striking.

1065
00:55:10,827 --> 00:55:13,560
If you think about this ecosystem,

1066
00:55:13,594 --> 00:55:15,160
how many snakes we found just today

1067
00:55:15,194 --> 00:55:18,194
and how many caiman we've seen
and how many turtles.

1068
00:55:20,394 --> 00:55:24,194
Where we're standing right now,
that's basically Cerrejon.

1069
00:55:25,727 --> 00:55:26,994
It's really an incredible experience

1070
00:55:27,027 --> 00:55:29,894
for me to be able to see
this habitat like this.

1071
00:55:29,927 --> 00:55:32,560
At Cerrejon, we find this big
layer with, you know,

1072
00:55:32,594 --> 00:55:34,894
all of these skeletons of snakes
closely spaced,

1073
00:55:34,927 --> 00:55:36,727
and you think, well,
how could an ecosystem sustain

1074
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,194
that many snakes in such a small place?

1075
00:55:39,227 --> 00:55:41,060
And then here we're finding
snakes all over the place,

1076
00:55:41,094 --> 00:55:43,927
together, giant, huge snakes.

1077
00:55:45,260 --> 00:55:49,094
The team finds
five anacondas in just one day.

1078
00:55:49,127 --> 00:55:53,094
Jesus has counted 2,000
of these snakes here.

1079
00:55:53,127 --> 00:55:54,727
Watch your hands.

1080
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,860
Cerrejon would
probably have been the same.

1081
00:55:58,894 --> 00:56:02,260
Not just one or two titanoboa,

1082
00:56:02,294 --> 00:56:04,327
but thousands.

1083
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:05,694
Go for it.

1084
00:56:05,727 --> 00:56:06,927
There you go.

1085
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,627
Beautiful, look at that.

1086
00:56:09,660 --> 00:56:10,927
As the trip ends,

1087
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:14,560
Jon Bloch turns snake catcher
for the first time.

1088
00:56:14,594 --> 00:56:15,794
Gorgeous snake.

1089
00:56:15,827 --> 00:56:18,294
Your first worry is to protect the head.

1090
00:56:18,327 --> 00:56:21,327
Their muscle cladded,
all the things protection,

1091
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:22,627
but the head is very sensitive.

1092
00:56:22,660 --> 00:56:23,860
So when they feel in danger,

1093
00:56:23,894 --> 00:56:26,660
they'll wrap their head around anything.

1094
00:56:26,694 --> 00:56:27,760
That's what she was trying to do

1095
00:56:27,794 --> 00:56:29,960
to protect her head between her loops,

1096
00:56:29,994 --> 00:56:31,560
that's what tangles you up.

1097
00:56:31,594 --> 00:56:33,694
Got it.

1098
00:56:33,727 --> 00:56:35,660
She's got me around the neck.

1099
00:56:35,694 --> 00:56:36,594
Do you want to help me there, Jason?

1100
00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:38,660
Thank you.

1101
00:56:38,694 --> 00:56:40,627
You're a good friend.

1102
00:56:40,660 --> 00:56:43,260
Oh, that's fantastic, look at that.

1103
00:56:46,594 --> 00:56:49,627
Jon and Jason's work,
both in the lab and the field,

1104
00:56:49,660 --> 00:56:52,094
is fed back to their model maker
Kevin Hockley

1105
00:56:52,127 --> 00:56:55,160
thousands of Miles away in Canada.

1106
00:56:59,827 --> 00:57:02,794
But to complete his recreation
of titanoboa,

1107
00:57:02,827 --> 00:57:05,260
he urgently needs a skull.

1108
00:57:14,627 --> 00:57:15,960
The team of scientists investigating

1109
00:57:15,994 --> 00:57:19,194
the giant prehistoric snake, titanoboa,

1110
00:57:19,227 --> 00:57:22,560
return to the coalmine
at Cerrejon in Colombia,

1111
00:57:22,594 --> 00:57:26,094
the place they first discovered
fossils of its vertebrae.

1112
00:57:27,660 --> 00:57:29,094
They're in a race against time

1113
00:57:29,127 --> 00:57:32,760
to find the one missing piece
in their Jigsaw puzzle,

1114
00:57:32,794 --> 00:57:35,827
a remnant of Titanoboa's skull.

1115
00:57:39,594 --> 00:57:42,827
Soon, the diggers will penetrate
beneath the seam of coal

1116
00:57:42,860 --> 00:57:46,894
that revealed the lost world
of 60 million years ago.

1117
00:57:48,894 --> 00:57:50,194
The operations at the mine

1118
00:57:50,227 --> 00:57:52,894
will eventually destroy
this hill completely

1119
00:57:52,927 --> 00:57:54,860
and probably this will be
our last trip here,

1120
00:57:54,894 --> 00:57:57,127
on the LA puente pit
that's been so good to us

1121
00:57:57,160 --> 00:57:58,560
in terms of collecting.

1122
00:57:58,594 --> 00:58:00,194
This is the only place in the world

1123
00:58:00,227 --> 00:58:04,194
that we've ever, in fact,
found titanoboa, for example.

1124
00:58:04,227 --> 00:58:07,227
The mine has not just
produced titanoboa,

1125
00:58:07,260 --> 00:58:10,894
it has revealed a dazzling
variety of giant animals.

1126
00:58:12,294 --> 00:58:15,694
One of the most remarkable
is the freshwater turtle,

1127
00:58:15,727 --> 00:58:19,327
discovered by Colombian
scientist Edwin Cadena.

1128
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:25,694
He could hardly believe his eyes

1129
00:58:25,727 --> 00:58:29,860
when he began scraping away
at the first fossil.

1130
00:58:29,894 --> 00:58:32,760
So I start working
with this screwdriver,

1131
00:58:32,794 --> 00:58:34,860
carefully removing all the sediment

1132
00:58:34,894 --> 00:58:37,127
that was covering this specimen.

1133
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,694
And wow, it was
a really, really nice moment

1134
00:58:40,727 --> 00:58:46,160
for me to see this almost
two-meters-long turtle

1135
00:58:46,194 --> 00:58:48,194
coming at the surface.

1136
00:58:49,827 --> 00:58:53,827
This is the head of the turtle
and this is the shell,

1137
00:58:53,860 --> 00:58:56,827
the carapace and the plastron
of the turtle.

1138
00:58:56,860 --> 00:58:59,894
It was a surprise for me.

1139
00:58:59,927 --> 00:59:01,827
The final measurement turns out to be

1140
00:59:01,860 --> 00:59:06,027
an astonishing eight feet,
as big as a dinner table.

1141
00:59:08,027 --> 00:59:11,160
The lost water world
contains strange species,

1142
00:59:11,194 --> 00:59:15,594
like the lungfish, capable of
breathing in surface air.

1143
00:59:15,627 --> 00:59:18,627
It grew as big as a man.

1144
00:59:18,660 --> 00:59:21,260
And there were massive crocodiles.

1145
00:59:21,294 --> 00:59:22,660
So we have three different types

1146
00:59:22,694 --> 00:59:25,094
of crocodile relatives from Colombia,

1147
00:59:25,127 --> 00:59:28,894
we have a small-bodied form
with a relatively narrow snout,

1148
00:59:28,927 --> 00:59:31,627
good for small prey items.

1149
00:59:31,660 --> 00:59:33,994
Medium sized,
long-snouted form here,

1150
00:59:34,027 --> 00:59:37,827
this lower jaw is very good for
catching slippery, quick fish.

1151
00:59:37,860 --> 00:59:39,694
Here is
a blunt-snouted crocodile

1152
00:59:39,727 --> 00:59:40,760
with a really short snout,

1153
00:59:40,794 --> 00:59:44,660
which is perfectly adapted
for really tough foods.

1154
00:59:44,694 --> 00:59:46,027
So something like a turtle shell

1155
00:59:46,060 --> 00:59:48,594
that needs a lot of force
in order to deal with that.

1156
00:59:48,627 --> 00:59:50,560
When you have your upper
and your lower jaws

1157
00:59:50,594 --> 00:59:52,660
coming together like this,

1158
00:59:52,694 --> 00:59:54,827
you have to have a really strong tooth

1159
00:59:54,860 --> 00:59:56,827
in order to withstand that pressure.

1160
00:59:56,860 --> 00:59:59,260
And these blunt, round teeth
are perfectly adapted

1161
00:59:59,294 --> 01:00:02,627
for taking on tough foods
like turtle shells.

1162
01:00:02,660 --> 01:00:06,760
Pieced together, the
crocodile measures 15 feet long.

1163
01:00:08,127 --> 01:00:11,794
The team has complete crocodiles
and complete turtles.

1164
01:00:11,827 --> 01:00:15,994
What they're desperate for
is a complete titanoboa.

1165
01:00:16,027 --> 01:00:18,294
But there's still no skull.

1166
01:00:19,694 --> 01:00:22,960
Finding a skull remnant
is almost impossible.

1167
01:00:22,994 --> 01:00:25,560
They're fragile shards
that have disintegrated

1168
01:00:25,594 --> 01:00:27,327
over the millions of years.

1169
01:00:28,660 --> 01:00:31,060
To give the team
the best possible chance,

1170
01:00:31,094 --> 01:00:33,994
Jason head, their expert
in extinct snakes,

1171
01:00:34,027 --> 01:00:37,027
makes his first visit to Cerrejon.

1172
01:00:37,060 --> 01:00:38,727
Now, of course, we don't
really have a lot of skulls

1173
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:40,827
for the fossil record of snakes,
'cause they're very light,

1174
01:00:40,860 --> 01:00:43,327
and they break apart
after the animal has died.

1175
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:45,860
Even though they haven't found a skull,

1176
01:00:45,894 --> 01:00:48,027
each time they return to the mine,

1177
01:00:48,060 --> 01:00:52,660
the team does discover more and
more evidence of titanoboa.

1178
01:00:53,727 --> 01:00:56,994
One find is extraordinarily intact.

1179
01:00:57,027 --> 01:00:59,327
This is a really incredible specimen.

1180
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:02,127
This snake, when it died,

1181
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:06,694
was roughly angled so that the
front of the animal was here,

1182
01:01:06,727 --> 01:01:08,927
probably coming around

1183
01:01:08,960 --> 01:01:12,694
and going all the way around

1184
01:01:12,727 --> 01:01:17,294
and then coming back
toward the tail here.

1185
01:01:17,327 --> 01:01:20,060
How big do you think
this snake was, about?

1186
01:01:20,094 --> 01:01:21,760
We're probably looking at a skull,

1187
01:01:21,794 --> 01:01:22,927
based on the relationship

1188
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:24,694
between skull size to body length

1189
01:01:24,727 --> 01:01:25,927
in living boas and pythons,

1190
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,260
of about this long from
the tip of the snout

1191
01:01:28,294 --> 01:01:29,727
to the back of the skull.

1192
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:31,260
That's the size of
a lot of the crocodiles

1193
01:01:31,294 --> 01:01:32,194
we get out of here.

1194
01:01:32,227 --> 01:01:32,760
That's right.

1195
01:01:32,794 --> 01:01:34,260
This is a big animal,

1196
01:01:34,294 --> 01:01:37,360
this is the largest animal
in the ecosystem.

1197
01:01:37,394 --> 01:01:40,727
Despite this great
spread of ribs and vertebrae,

1198
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,560
no skull is found.

1199
01:01:43,594 --> 01:01:45,160
Finally back here...

1200
01:01:45,194 --> 01:01:48,294
But the size of this
fossil snake raises the question

1201
01:01:48,327 --> 01:01:52,894
of why some titanoboa seem to be
so much bigger than others.

1202
01:01:59,294 --> 01:02:03,894
The answer to that lies here
in the Venezuelan llanos.

1203
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:08,827
Jesus Rivas has stumbled on something

1204
01:02:08,860 --> 01:02:12,227
that's rare for humans
to catch sight of.

1205
01:02:12,260 --> 01:02:14,360
Right here, this is a small anaconda,

1206
01:02:14,394 --> 01:02:16,060
it's a male-sized anaconda.

1207
01:02:16,094 --> 01:02:20,127
And it's wrapped around something.

1208
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:24,227
At least one male, could be two,
but hard to tell for now.

1209
01:02:24,260 --> 01:02:29,660
And the female's body is
definitely in that direction.

1210
01:02:29,694 --> 01:02:30,994
So then I dig it out.

1211
01:02:31,027 --> 01:02:33,760
Yeah, that is the female's body
for sure.

1212
01:02:38,627 --> 01:02:40,294
And that is a third.

1213
01:02:40,327 --> 01:02:41,660
Don't bite me, please.

1214
01:02:41,694 --> 01:02:43,894
This is a mating ball,

1215
01:02:43,927 --> 01:02:47,660
several male anacondas
wrapped around a female.

1216
01:02:52,727 --> 01:02:55,694
The males are competing
to mate with her.

1217
01:02:55,727 --> 01:02:57,794
Only one will succeed.

1218
01:02:57,827 --> 01:02:59,527
He's leaving.

1219
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:03,627
Two boys.

1220
01:03:03,660 --> 01:03:07,227
Second boy is here.

1221
01:03:07,260 --> 01:03:09,094
There's a third boy.

1222
01:03:10,927 --> 01:03:12,627
Not surprisingly,

1223
01:03:12,660 --> 01:03:16,794
the male anacondas are angry
at being pulled off the female.

1224
01:03:16,827 --> 01:03:18,194
Oh, there you go.

1225
01:03:18,227 --> 01:03:20,594
Grab it, grab you, it doesn't matter.

1226
01:03:21,327 --> 01:03:23,727
She was tagged.

1227
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,827
The snake tagged her, look.

1228
01:03:26,860 --> 01:03:28,127
Oh, beautiful, look.

1229
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:32,727
I need to see the head,
which is somewhere here.

1230
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:35,627
Now she's backing up.

1231
01:03:35,660 --> 01:03:36,727
Coochie, coochie, coochie.

1232
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:39,294
Okay, got you.

1233
01:03:39,327 --> 01:03:41,027
Oh, she's a big one! Woo!

1234
01:03:41,060 --> 01:03:43,727
This anaconda is 15 feet long,

1235
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:46,594
a huge snake in today's world.

1236
01:03:48,227 --> 01:03:50,927
Okay.

1237
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:54,660
The reason for
the snake's size is simple.

1238
01:03:54,694 --> 01:03:55,794
She's female.

1239
01:03:55,827 --> 01:03:58,960
She had four males with her.

1240
01:03:58,994 --> 01:04:02,260
You can see the difference in size,

1241
01:04:02,294 --> 01:04:05,660
how much smaller the males are.

1242
01:04:05,694 --> 01:04:07,360
Based on living anacondas,

1243
01:04:07,394 --> 01:04:10,194
it is likely that
in the lost world of Cerrejon,

1244
01:04:10,227 --> 01:04:14,360
the female titanoboa is also
bigger and deadlier

1245
01:04:14,394 --> 01:04:16,694
than the male.

1246
01:04:16,727 --> 01:04:21,227
Males avoid females most of
the year for very good reason.

1247
01:04:21,260 --> 01:04:24,927
They're in danger of
being eaten by them.

1248
01:04:24,960 --> 01:04:26,594
But in the mating season,

1249
01:04:26,627 --> 01:04:30,260
chemical signals in the water
show it's safe to approach.

1250
01:04:32,127 --> 01:04:35,594
And then, the fight is among the males.

1251
01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:40,194
The wrestling can last for weeks,

1252
01:04:40,227 --> 01:04:43,627
as the males try to
push each other aside.

1253
01:04:46,260 --> 01:04:50,660
Until, finally, one manages to mate.

1254
01:04:51,894 --> 01:04:53,760
The pregnant female breaks off,

1255
01:04:53,794 --> 01:04:57,294
her young now growing inside her.

1256
01:04:57,327 --> 01:04:58,894
She's stored enough food in her body

1257
01:04:58,927 --> 01:05:02,627
to survive the seven months
of pregnancy.

1258
01:05:02,660 --> 01:05:05,927
She won't eat again
until she's given birth.

1259
01:05:10,594 --> 01:05:13,894
In the autopsy lab at
Indiana university, Bloomington,

1260
01:05:13,927 --> 01:05:17,560
grad student Beth Reinke shows
the huge number of eggs

1261
01:05:17,594 --> 01:05:20,260
a female python carries.

1262
01:05:20,294 --> 01:05:21,894
These are all eggs.

1263
01:05:21,927 --> 01:05:26,694
I see 29, 30 right now, 31, 32.

1264
01:05:26,727 --> 01:05:28,260
In the female titanoboa,

1265
01:05:28,294 --> 01:05:31,660
there may be as many as 100 offspring.

1266
01:05:33,027 --> 01:05:36,860
After seven months,
she's ready to give birth.

1267
01:05:36,894 --> 01:05:39,127
The baby snakes are in
a little, tiny shell membrane,

1268
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:40,260
they punch through that,

1269
01:05:40,294 --> 01:05:42,094
and then they actually leave the mother,

1270
01:05:42,127 --> 01:05:46,594
in a way that's very similar to
modern birth in most mammals.

1271
01:05:46,627 --> 01:05:49,927
Titanoboa is likely
to give birth in the water,

1272
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:53,260
but may sometimes do so on land.

1273
01:05:53,294 --> 01:05:57,027
The babies are already over
three feet long at birth,

1274
01:05:57,060 --> 01:05:59,894
as big as some modern snake adults.

1275
01:05:59,927 --> 01:06:02,294
Their size will be
their only protection.

1276
01:06:02,327 --> 01:06:03,994
Once the babies hatch,

1277
01:06:04,027 --> 01:06:06,594
they're pretty good in terms
of taking care of themselves.

1278
01:06:06,627 --> 01:06:08,860
They're fully functional,
they're able to hunt,

1279
01:06:08,894 --> 01:06:10,660
they're able to move around.

1280
01:06:10,694 --> 01:06:11,994
All their senses are fully developed.

1281
01:06:12,027 --> 01:06:14,160
So they're pretty good to go.

1282
01:06:14,194 --> 01:06:17,960
Female Titanoboas
do not mother their children.

1283
01:06:17,994 --> 01:06:19,794
The only attention they pay them

1284
01:06:19,827 --> 01:06:22,727
is to eat any that don't survive birth.

1285
01:06:26,094 --> 01:06:28,660
After abandoning the newborns,

1286
01:06:28,694 --> 01:06:31,894
the mother titanoboa heads off
in search of prey

1287
01:06:31,927 --> 01:06:34,327
to relieve a hunger grown ferocious

1288
01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:36,960
from seven months without food.

1289
01:06:40,660 --> 01:06:44,960
The giant fossil at Cerrejon
could be one of those females,

1290
01:06:44,994 --> 01:06:48,727
but the skull still
eludes the searchers.

1291
01:06:48,760 --> 01:06:51,327
If we are gonna find one,
it should be over here.

1292
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:53,694
Maybe we should think about
searching off in this way,

1293
01:06:53,727 --> 01:06:54,994
excavating more of the hill.

1294
01:06:55,027 --> 01:06:56,127
All we can do is look.

1295
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:58,294
That's right, let's do it.

1296
01:07:09,360 --> 01:07:11,727
Looking for fossils can be a little bit

1297
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:14,060
like searching for
a needle in a haystack.

1298
01:07:14,094 --> 01:07:15,227
If there's going to be a skull,

1299
01:07:15,260 --> 01:07:17,627
it should be over here somewhere.

1300
01:07:24,827 --> 01:07:26,960
Finally, with time running out

1301
01:07:26,994 --> 01:07:28,260
and the ever present threat

1302
01:07:28,294 --> 01:07:30,794
of the mine's need to resume digging,

1303
01:07:30,827 --> 01:07:34,160
a Colombian grad student strikes gold.

1304
01:07:37,294 --> 01:07:40,694
Not one, but three skull bones.

1305
01:07:42,394 --> 01:07:43,894
This is
a once-in-a-lifetime discovery,

1306
01:07:43,927 --> 01:07:46,627
really, this is just amazing.

1307
01:07:46,660 --> 01:07:48,560
For somebody who has
gone around the world

1308
01:07:48,594 --> 01:07:49,927
and picked up vertebrae,

1309
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:51,660
to actually pick up pieces of the skull

1310
01:07:51,694 --> 01:07:57,360
is an absolutely unique and
unbelievable experience,

1311
01:07:57,394 --> 01:07:59,194
it's almost indescribable.

1312
01:08:01,627 --> 01:08:04,560
Those three bones include
parts of the lower jaw,

1313
01:08:04,594 --> 01:08:05,994
and you can see right here,

1314
01:08:06,027 --> 01:08:08,594
these are the tooth positions
where teeth would have been

1315
01:08:08,627 --> 01:08:10,560
when the animal was alive.

1316
01:08:10,594 --> 01:08:12,694
And this is actually
a bone of the jaw joint.

1317
01:08:12,727 --> 01:08:14,194
This is the back of the skull,

1318
01:08:14,227 --> 01:08:16,727
and right here is where the lower jaw

1319
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:19,060
actually connects with the upper jaw.

1320
01:08:19,094 --> 01:08:20,727
So up here on us.

1321
01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:22,294
From these three bones,

1322
01:08:22,327 --> 01:08:25,627
we can make inferences about
its ecology, where it lived,

1323
01:08:25,660 --> 01:08:28,960
what it ate, how it behaved,
how it reproduced,

1324
01:08:28,994 --> 01:08:32,127
all of the aspects of its life history.

1325
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:35,094
The precious skull
fragments are carefully packed up

1326
01:08:35,127 --> 01:08:38,094
and flown back to the museum
for analysis.

1327
01:08:39,727 --> 01:08:44,660
They are the clue to exactly
how and what titanoboa ate.

1328
01:08:44,694 --> 01:08:45,694
Turn that around.

1329
01:08:45,727 --> 01:08:47,260
This piece of the jaw of titanoboa

1330
01:08:47,294 --> 01:08:50,060
corresponds to that part of
the jaw in a living snake.

1331
01:08:50,094 --> 01:08:51,960
Wow, look at that, yeah, right.

1332
01:08:51,994 --> 01:08:53,827
Jon and Jason fit the bone fragments

1333
01:08:53,860 --> 01:08:55,660
to positions on the skull.

1334
01:08:55,694 --> 01:08:58,227
Titanoboa's head begins to take shape.

1335
01:08:58,260 --> 01:08:59,627
Great, so that would be...

1336
01:08:59,660 --> 01:09:00,594
Boy, look at that.

1337
01:09:00,627 --> 01:09:03,294
So this jaw would have been,

1338
01:09:03,327 --> 01:09:05,027
there would have been
a little bit more on the front.

1339
01:09:05,060 --> 01:09:06,627
The skull of this animal
would be about that long.

1340
01:09:06,660 --> 01:09:08,694
Fantastic, and we have
some other pieces here, too.

1341
01:09:08,727 --> 01:09:10,060
Even more important

1342
01:09:10,094 --> 01:09:12,594
than the huge size of titanoboa's head,

1343
01:09:12,627 --> 01:09:16,660
is how wide it can open its mouth.

1344
01:09:16,694 --> 01:09:19,660
Its gape determines what it can eat.

1345
01:09:19,694 --> 01:09:21,594
They have these very long lower jaws,

1346
01:09:21,627 --> 01:09:24,994
with the jaw joint suspended far
behind the back of the skull.

1347
01:09:25,027 --> 01:09:27,327
So when they open their mouths,
this jaw swings down

1348
01:09:27,360 --> 01:09:30,127
and gives them a very,
very, very wide gape.

1349
01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:30,827
Okay.

1350
01:09:30,860 --> 01:09:32,094
And then it would have swung,

1351
01:09:32,127 --> 01:09:33,160
basically, at the back of the jaw.

1352
01:09:33,194 --> 01:09:34,227
Exactly.

1353
01:09:34,260 --> 01:09:36,960
It would have swung down.
Boy, look at that.

1354
01:09:36,994 --> 01:09:38,160
So how big?

1355
01:09:38,194 --> 01:09:40,127
It would have had a gape,
probably about like that.

1356
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:40,994
At least, right?

1357
01:09:41,027 --> 01:09:42,660
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

1358
01:09:42,694 --> 01:09:44,694
Now also the lower jaws
are actually separate,

1359
01:09:44,727 --> 01:09:47,194
so that when the lower jaws
open, when this swings down,

1360
01:09:47,227 --> 01:09:48,594
the lower jaws will actually spread

1361
01:09:48,627 --> 01:09:50,160
wide apart from each other.

1362
01:09:50,194 --> 01:09:53,560
So titanoboa could have
had a gape that wide.

1363
01:09:53,594 --> 01:09:58,627
Even modern snakes display
appetites that defy belief.

1364
01:09:58,660 --> 01:10:01,560
In the everglades,
a large python once swallowed

1365
01:10:01,594 --> 01:10:04,227
an alligator as big as itself.

1366
01:10:04,260 --> 01:10:06,794
It didn't end well for either of them.

1367
01:10:06,827 --> 01:10:09,827
The snake exploded.

1368
01:10:09,860 --> 01:10:13,327
But prey like that
was easy meat for titanoboa.

1369
01:10:18,894 --> 01:10:22,227
In ancient Cerrejon,
there were monster meals

1370
01:10:22,260 --> 01:10:24,194
for a monster appetite.

1371
01:10:24,227 --> 01:10:27,194
The biggest lungfish, at 10 feet long,

1372
01:10:27,227 --> 01:10:30,594
a nice little entree.

1373
01:10:30,627 --> 01:10:34,760
The crocodiles,
15 feet long and powerful.

1374
01:10:34,794 --> 01:10:37,960
Satisfying as the main course.

1375
01:10:37,994 --> 01:10:40,560
Perhaps only one animal
would have been too big

1376
01:10:40,594 --> 01:10:43,594
for even titanoboa to consume...

1377
01:10:43,627 --> 01:10:46,227
The giant adult turtle.

1378
01:10:46,260 --> 01:10:48,594
They've got really thick shells,

1379
01:10:48,627 --> 01:10:52,594
and that means a lot of bone
for a snake to get, digest.

1380
01:10:52,627 --> 01:10:56,594
So it's really not a good idea
for a snake to get something

1381
01:10:56,627 --> 01:10:59,694
that is gonna stay in
your stomach for so long,

1382
01:10:59,727 --> 01:11:02,127
because it has so much bone on it.

1383
01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:04,860
So, for the largest turtles at Cerrejon,

1384
01:11:04,894 --> 01:11:07,094
they had so many chances to survive,

1385
01:11:07,127 --> 01:11:10,327
because the snakes probably
preferred to eat crocodiles

1386
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:13,927
or other small animals.

1387
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:16,294
Titanoboa's ability to swallow prey

1388
01:11:16,327 --> 01:11:20,060
so much bulkier than itself
is extraordinary,

1389
01:11:20,094 --> 01:11:24,160
and its solution,
the same as for all snakes.

1390
01:11:24,194 --> 01:11:26,860
Once they're sort of
sensing that the prey's dead,

1391
01:11:26,894 --> 01:11:29,594
and they sort of figure out
where the head of the prey is,

1392
01:11:29,627 --> 01:11:32,227
and then they start to eat the prey.

1393
01:11:32,260 --> 01:11:33,827
Snakes, obviously, are not like people.

1394
01:11:33,860 --> 01:11:35,194
They don't have hands

1395
01:11:35,227 --> 01:11:37,660
that they can shovel food
down their throat.

1396
01:11:37,694 --> 01:11:40,694
They've got a left and a right jawbone.

1397
01:11:40,727 --> 01:11:42,760
So that degree of flexibility

1398
01:11:42,794 --> 01:11:45,594
enables them to eat much larger prey.

1399
01:11:45,627 --> 01:11:51,094
So they can almost walk their
jawbones across their prey.

1400
01:11:51,127 --> 01:11:54,927
And if you imagine a combination
of muscle contractions,

1401
01:11:54,960 --> 01:11:58,727
their recurved teeth, all help
sort of bring that prey

1402
01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:01,060
into their mouth and into their throat.

1403
01:12:01,094 --> 01:12:03,560
Flexible ligaments allow titanoboa

1404
01:12:03,594 --> 01:12:08,560
to stretch its jaw
wider and wider apart.

1405
01:12:08,594 --> 01:12:12,860
Little by little, it maneuvers
its jaws over the crocodile,

1406
01:12:12,894 --> 01:12:17,594
dragging it into its throat
and down into its stomach.

1407
01:12:25,927 --> 01:12:28,860
The next challenge is digesting.

1408
01:12:30,194 --> 01:12:33,127
So this would be
whatever the snake last ate.

1409
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:35,994
This is the stomach,
and we cut right through

1410
01:12:36,027 --> 01:12:39,260
in our cross section,
whatever the last prey item was.

1411
01:12:39,294 --> 01:12:43,060
So all this brown, gray,
hairy area is the prey,

1412
01:12:43,094 --> 01:12:44,994
and I'll cut open the stomach some more,

1413
01:12:45,027 --> 01:12:46,794
so we can...

1414
01:12:48,694 --> 01:12:50,094
...get a better view of him.

1415
01:12:50,127 --> 01:12:51,794
There we go.

1416
01:12:54,727 --> 01:12:56,660
Here's some ribs.

1417
01:12:56,694 --> 01:12:58,660
Here's the tail.

1418
01:12:58,694 --> 01:12:59,994
Oh, yeah.

1419
01:13:00,027 --> 01:13:02,827
This snake's prey was swallowed whole.

1420
01:13:02,860 --> 01:13:03,927
Oh, is that the skull?

1421
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:05,927
That should be the skull.

1422
01:13:07,294 --> 01:13:09,027
That looks to be a rat.

1423
01:13:09,060 --> 01:13:10,294
Yep.

1424
01:13:10,327 --> 01:13:12,194
All the meat is stripped from the rat,

1425
01:13:12,227 --> 01:13:14,760
even the bones will end up being eaten.

1426
01:13:14,794 --> 01:13:15,760
Rather large rat.

1427
01:13:15,794 --> 01:13:17,627
Yeah, very large rat.

1428
01:13:17,660 --> 01:13:19,260
I mean, you can see here,

1429
01:13:19,294 --> 01:13:21,927
there isn't really that much
fat or soft tissue anymore,

1430
01:13:21,960 --> 01:13:23,660
it's mostly the bones,
the connective tissue,

1431
01:13:23,694 --> 01:13:25,627
and a lot of the fur.

1432
01:13:25,660 --> 01:13:28,627
But all of it will be
broken down along the way.

1433
01:13:28,660 --> 01:13:31,127
Everything goes, it's pretty cool.

1434
01:13:45,294 --> 01:13:49,260
For titanoboa,
the kill is the easy part.

1435
01:13:51,260 --> 01:13:56,560
The effort of constriction is
nothing to what comes next.

1436
01:13:56,594 --> 01:13:58,927
For titanoboa now has to digest

1437
01:13:58,960 --> 01:14:02,194
half a ton of
blunt-nosed crocodile...

1438
01:14:02,227 --> 01:14:05,860
Skin, bones, everything.

1439
01:14:05,894 --> 01:14:07,627
Its stomach stretches,

1440
01:14:07,660 --> 01:14:11,694
and its temperature rises from
the energy needed for digestion.

1441
01:14:11,727 --> 01:14:14,660
Hydrochloric acid fills the stomach,

1442
01:14:14,694 --> 01:14:18,594
slowly dissolving bone
and tissue to liquefy it.

1443
01:14:18,627 --> 01:14:21,760
It may be its only meal in a year.

1444
01:14:23,927 --> 01:14:27,760
With a skull found, titanoboa's
model maker Kevin Hockley

1445
01:14:27,794 --> 01:14:30,060
can complete his creation.

1446
01:14:32,027 --> 01:14:35,960
Shaping the head is
the most complex part.

1447
01:14:35,994 --> 01:14:41,027
This face has not been seen
on earth for 60 million years.

1448
01:14:41,060 --> 01:14:42,994
I kind of have a visual in my mind

1449
01:14:43,027 --> 01:14:45,627
of what the shape it's supposed to be,

1450
01:14:45,660 --> 01:14:47,794
and I arrive at that mental image

1451
01:14:47,827 --> 01:14:51,560
by going over
all my records and material

1452
01:14:51,594 --> 01:14:54,060
and try and picture it without
all the chunks on there,

1453
01:14:54,094 --> 01:14:55,327
and then just start whittling away

1454
01:14:55,360 --> 01:14:59,327
all the pieces that don't belong.

1455
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:03,194
The model maker is not just
conjuring an image of the snake,

1456
01:15:03,227 --> 01:15:05,927
he's creating the exact individual

1457
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:07,660
from that initial vertebra,

1458
01:15:07,694 --> 01:15:11,827
based on the scientist's years of work.

1459
01:15:11,860 --> 01:15:16,994
A real 60-million-year-old
creature is coming back to life.

1460
01:15:17,027 --> 01:15:20,227
But one overriding mystery remains.

1461
01:15:20,260 --> 01:15:24,994
How on earth did it get so big
in the first place?

1462
01:15:25,027 --> 01:15:27,994
Why aren't there snakes that big today?

1463
01:15:28,027 --> 01:15:32,694
Why are they so large in
the past and not so large today?

1464
01:15:32,727 --> 01:15:35,694
What made titanoboa into a giant?

1465
01:15:37,360 --> 01:15:40,294
What was it about Cerrejon's lost world

1466
01:15:40,327 --> 01:15:42,194
that was so different?

1467
01:15:45,594 --> 01:15:47,027
The first possibility

1468
01:15:47,060 --> 01:15:49,027
that we thought quite a bit about,

1469
01:15:49,060 --> 01:15:52,894
in terms of why titanoboa
would have been so large,

1470
01:15:52,927 --> 01:15:56,660
is that maybe what
it was eating was larger.

1471
01:15:56,694 --> 01:16:01,227
Cerrejon was not just
a water world of giant snakes,

1472
01:16:01,260 --> 01:16:04,160
there were giant crocodiles,
turtles and fish,

1473
01:16:04,194 --> 01:16:08,694
a food chain of monsters
to be eaten by monsters.

1474
01:16:12,594 --> 01:16:13,994
And the skull bones of titanoboa

1475
01:16:14,027 --> 01:16:18,294
prove that its gape was big
enough to eat almost anything.

1476
01:16:21,194 --> 01:16:25,894
But why were all these animals
so big in the first place?

1477
01:16:25,927 --> 01:16:29,960
One answer is emerging...
Temperature.

1478
01:16:29,994 --> 01:16:33,927
Mammals are warmed by the energy
they get from food.

1479
01:16:36,094 --> 01:16:40,860
Snakes and other reptiles,
which are cold-blooded, are not.

1480
01:16:40,894 --> 01:16:43,660
Instead, their body temperature
is controlled

1481
01:16:43,694 --> 01:16:45,660
by the climate around them.

1482
01:16:48,894 --> 01:16:52,027
In Venezuela, Jesus Rivas
has been experimenting

1483
01:16:52,060 --> 01:16:54,660
with anacondas to show how this works.

1484
01:16:54,694 --> 01:16:55,594
We need a transmitter.

1485
01:16:55,627 --> 01:16:58,694
Which one is that?

1486
01:16:58,727 --> 01:17:00,027
He uses a transmitter

1487
01:17:00,060 --> 01:17:02,794
to keep record of
the snake's body temperature.

1488
01:17:04,827 --> 01:17:06,627
This is a transmitter
we're gonna give her.

1489
01:17:06,660 --> 01:17:11,727
It has a temperature sensor
encapsulated in the resin.

1490
01:17:12,994 --> 01:17:16,127
It's a small thing,
it looks a little rough,

1491
01:17:16,160 --> 01:17:19,627
but beware that she can swallow
a full-grown caiman,

1492
01:17:19,660 --> 01:17:22,627
so this is not even a snack.

1493
01:17:22,660 --> 01:17:24,027
Come on, girl.

1494
01:17:25,694 --> 01:17:28,127
I knew you were going to do that.

1495
01:17:28,160 --> 01:17:29,660
Yes, that was.

1496
01:17:29,694 --> 01:17:31,927
It's difficult to overcome her muscles

1497
01:17:31,960 --> 01:17:33,594
and get it far enough down.

1498
01:17:33,627 --> 01:17:37,260
But I think now the transmitter,

1499
01:17:37,294 --> 01:17:38,760
I feel it all the way here,

1500
01:17:38,794 --> 01:17:42,694
so I think it's deep enough now
that it should be okay.

1501
01:17:44,194 --> 01:17:45,694
Okay.

1502
01:17:53,627 --> 01:17:54,694
Good girl.

1503
01:17:54,727 --> 01:17:56,160
With the radio transmission,

1504
01:17:56,194 --> 01:18:00,560
Jesus can trace his anacondas
over years of life.

1505
01:18:00,594 --> 01:18:02,560
Look at her.

1506
01:18:02,594 --> 01:18:04,794
Get a picture, Roseanne, if you can.

1507
01:18:04,827 --> 01:18:06,627
Beautiful girl.

1508
01:18:06,660 --> 01:18:08,994
That's the best part of
working with snakes,

1509
01:18:09,027 --> 01:18:11,860
letting them go and
seeing them swim away.

1510
01:18:11,894 --> 01:18:13,327
Jesus' measurements show

1511
01:18:13,360 --> 01:18:16,027
the snake's body temperature
goes up and down,

1512
01:18:16,060 --> 01:18:18,994
in a way that matches with
extraordinary precision

1513
01:18:19,027 --> 01:18:22,527
the changing temperature
of the world they live in.

1514
01:18:23,994 --> 01:18:25,860
And it's temperature that determines

1515
01:18:25,894 --> 01:18:28,827
how big a snake can grow.

1516
01:18:30,694 --> 01:18:32,227
In order for
a cold-blooded animal

1517
01:18:32,260 --> 01:18:33,627
to reach a certain size,

1518
01:18:33,660 --> 01:18:36,694
the bigger they get,
the more warmth they need.

1519
01:18:36,727 --> 01:18:41,227
So, to get a big snake, what you
need are very hot environments.

1520
01:18:41,260 --> 01:18:43,694
The distribution of
snakes in today's world

1521
01:18:43,727 --> 01:18:48,760
shows the direct correlation
between temperature and size.

1522
01:18:48,794 --> 01:18:50,794
In mild climates like Great Britain,

1523
01:18:50,827 --> 01:18:54,027
there's nothing bigger than
a six-foot grass snake.

1524
01:18:56,627 --> 01:18:58,360
In the central United States,

1525
01:18:58,394 --> 01:19:02,227
gopher snakes at eight feet
are the largest.

1526
01:19:02,260 --> 01:19:04,694
And in the heat of the Amazon basin,

1527
01:19:04,727 --> 01:19:08,894
there is the anaconda,
up to 25 feet long.

1528
01:19:08,927 --> 01:19:11,927
In the modern world,
that's about the limit.

1529
01:19:13,327 --> 01:19:15,227
In cold-blooded animals,
the ultimate regulator

1530
01:19:15,260 --> 01:19:18,660
is always going to be climate,
it's gonna be temperature.

1531
01:19:18,694 --> 01:19:20,827
Titanoboa's size is evidence

1532
01:19:20,860 --> 01:19:24,660
of a hotter temperature,
60 million years ago.

1533
01:19:27,827 --> 01:19:30,127
There's further support
for a warmer climate,

1534
01:19:30,160 --> 01:19:33,027
from a much tinier piece of evidence.

1535
01:19:35,060 --> 01:19:36,960
The humble leaf.

1536
01:19:43,160 --> 01:19:46,260
A decade ago, fabiany Herrera discovered

1537
01:19:46,294 --> 01:19:49,927
the very first leaf fossil

1538
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:53,694
that revealed the lost rainforest

1539
01:19:53,727 --> 01:19:56,960
that led to titanoboa.

1540
01:19:56,994 --> 01:20:00,760
Ever since, he's been scouring
the area around Cerrejon,

1541
01:20:00,794 --> 01:20:03,894
comparing present with past.

1542
01:20:03,927 --> 01:20:06,094
The fossil plants that
we're finding on Cerrejon

1543
01:20:06,127 --> 01:20:07,227
are extremely similar

1544
01:20:07,260 --> 01:20:09,927
to the plants that we see today
in modern rainforests

1545
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:12,627
in South or central America.

1546
01:20:12,660 --> 01:20:14,094
Some of the plants that we have today,

1547
01:20:14,127 --> 01:20:16,760
that are present at Cerrejon
60 million years ago,

1548
01:20:16,794 --> 01:20:19,760
are the legume family
or the bean family.

1549
01:20:19,794 --> 01:20:23,860
We also had the chocolate
family, the banana family,

1550
01:20:23,894 --> 01:20:26,794
the palm family, the avocado family.

1551
01:20:26,827 --> 01:20:28,160
All the ones that you see today

1552
01:20:28,194 --> 01:20:32,127
in modern rainforests in South America.

1553
01:20:32,160 --> 01:20:36,060
A plant's leaves are
a way of measuring temperature.

1554
01:20:36,094 --> 01:20:40,160
The edge is where
a leaf loses vital water.

1555
01:20:40,194 --> 01:20:44,060
In hotter climates, it needs
that water more than ever.

1556
01:20:45,894 --> 01:20:49,627
Leaves with smooth edges lose
less water to evaporation

1557
01:20:49,660 --> 01:20:51,827
than leaves with jagged edges.

1558
01:20:53,727 --> 01:20:56,560
The higher the proportion
of smooth-leaved species,

1559
01:20:56,594 --> 01:20:58,560
the hotter the climate.

1560
01:20:58,594 --> 01:21:00,027
What we are finding at Cerrejon

1561
01:21:00,060 --> 01:21:02,994
is that even more of the species
have the smooth edges,

1562
01:21:03,027 --> 01:21:06,227
and that indicates a higher
or a hotter temperature

1563
01:21:06,260 --> 01:21:09,060
60 million years ago.

1564
01:21:09,094 --> 01:21:11,027
For Jon Bloch and Jason head,

1565
01:21:11,060 --> 01:21:13,360
as they near the end of
this part of their journey

1566
01:21:13,394 --> 01:21:15,760
into Cerrejon's lost world,

1567
01:21:15,794 --> 01:21:18,094
this research on temperature
has produced

1568
01:21:18,127 --> 01:21:21,194
a fascinating byproduct.

1569
01:21:21,227 --> 01:21:26,327
There's a limit to how high
a temperature leaves can show.

1570
01:21:26,360 --> 01:21:30,260
But they believe that the size
of titanoboa may be able to show

1571
01:21:30,294 --> 01:21:34,694
how hot the lost world
of Cerrejon really was.

1572
01:21:34,727 --> 01:21:36,860
We use titanoboa as a thermometer

1573
01:21:36,894 --> 01:21:40,360
that we dipped into the past
to tell the temperature.

1574
01:21:40,394 --> 01:21:44,360
It provided us with a new way of
telling temperature in the past

1575
01:21:44,394 --> 01:21:47,260
that had not been used before.

1576
01:21:47,294 --> 01:21:48,694
They've calculated that

1577
01:21:48,727 --> 01:21:51,194
titanoboa can only have grown so big

1578
01:21:51,227 --> 01:21:54,560
at a rainforest temperature
60 million years ago

1579
01:21:54,594 --> 01:21:59,594
significantly higher than
in the rainforest of today.

1580
01:21:59,627 --> 01:22:01,027
Our estimates are basically

1581
01:22:01,060 --> 01:22:06,560
between about 29 to somewhere
of 33, 34 degrees.

1582
01:22:06,594 --> 01:22:09,727
That's a range of 84 to 93 Fahrenheit,

1583
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:11,594
average annual temperature.

1584
01:22:11,627 --> 01:22:14,760
At times, it must have
soared far higher.

1585
01:22:16,194 --> 01:22:19,894
It's a piece of research with
intriguing implications.

1586
01:22:19,927 --> 01:22:22,960
It suggests that 60 million years ago

1587
01:22:22,994 --> 01:22:25,227
the rainforest of Cerrejon thrived

1588
01:22:25,260 --> 01:22:26,960
at a very high temperature,

1589
01:22:26,994 --> 01:22:29,927
which, according to some of
today's computer models,

1590
01:22:29,960 --> 01:22:33,127
would kill off its plants.

1591
01:22:33,160 --> 01:22:36,294
So Cerrejon appears to show
that global warming

1592
01:22:36,327 --> 01:22:39,827
won't necessarily destroy
the rainforest.

1593
01:22:41,127 --> 01:22:44,160
But could it lead to much bigger snakes?

1594
01:22:44,194 --> 01:22:48,027
Could titanoboa itself make a comeback?

1595
01:22:48,060 --> 01:22:49,660
It's theoretically possible.

1596
01:22:49,694 --> 01:22:51,260
Something like an anaconda, for example,

1597
01:22:51,294 --> 01:22:53,627
could become as large as titanoboa

1598
01:22:53,660 --> 01:22:59,127
if the temperature on the planet
were to become that warm again.

1599
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:02,794
The future remains speculation.

1600
01:23:02,827 --> 01:23:06,127
The reality of the past
is that, in the end,

1601
01:23:06,160 --> 01:23:08,627
titanoboa disappeared.

1602
01:23:08,660 --> 01:23:12,827
Whether cooling temperatures
or something else killed it off

1603
01:23:12,860 --> 01:23:16,627
remains the subject of ongoing research.

1604
01:23:16,660 --> 01:23:18,960
And soon, the seam of coal at Cerrejon

1605
01:23:18,994 --> 01:23:21,160
that allowed it to be rediscovered

1606
01:23:21,194 --> 01:23:22,894
will disappear, too,

1607
01:23:22,927 --> 01:23:26,827
as the diggers move down
to the next layer.

1608
01:23:26,860 --> 01:23:28,560
So, on one hand, that's sad,

1609
01:23:28,594 --> 01:23:30,860
on the other hand, we have
a big sample from this slope,

1610
01:23:30,894 --> 01:23:33,560
so I think we've done pretty well.

1611
01:23:33,594 --> 01:23:36,327
I'm pretty happy that the mine
is continuing to work,

1612
01:23:36,360 --> 01:23:39,660
because it's going to expose
all kinds of new layers,

1613
01:23:39,694 --> 01:23:41,294
and I'm ready to see what else is there.

1614
01:23:41,327 --> 01:23:42,927
So I say bring it on.

1615
01:23:42,960 --> 01:23:44,760
Take out the slope
and open up some more,

1616
01:23:44,794 --> 01:23:47,260
so we can see what else is there.

1617
01:23:47,294 --> 01:23:48,660
But before it goes,

1618
01:23:48,694 --> 01:23:52,194
there's a last twist from Cerrejon.

1619
01:23:52,227 --> 01:23:54,927
The fossils are starting to
hint that there was something

1620
01:23:54,960 --> 01:24:00,127
in its lost water world
to rival even titanoboa.

1621
01:24:00,160 --> 01:24:03,660
On this huge turtle shell
are the bite marks

1622
01:24:03,694 --> 01:24:07,260
of truly enormous teeth.

1623
01:24:07,294 --> 01:24:10,660
They don't match
titanoboa's dental records.

1624
01:24:11,927 --> 01:24:14,594
And this turtle was probably too wide

1625
01:24:14,627 --> 01:24:17,660
for even titanoboa to swallow.

1626
01:24:19,227 --> 01:24:20,927
They look like croc teeth,

1627
01:24:20,960 --> 01:24:23,127
but most of the croc bones so far found

1628
01:24:23,160 --> 01:24:26,960
aren't big enough to
take on a giant turtle.

1629
01:24:26,994 --> 01:24:30,694
This new bone suggests
another colossal predator,

1630
01:24:30,727 --> 01:24:33,727
nearly as big as titanoboa itself.

1631
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:36,194
But this one, a crocodile.

1632
01:24:36,227 --> 01:24:37,827
So we have a single vertebra

1633
01:24:37,860 --> 01:24:40,027
from a 13-meter individual.

1634
01:24:40,060 --> 01:24:41,760
Lengthwise, it would have been
a little bit shorter

1635
01:24:41,794 --> 01:24:44,027
than a full-grown titanoboa,

1636
01:24:44,060 --> 01:24:45,227
but still very closely related

1637
01:24:45,260 --> 01:24:46,994
to the other crocodiles of this site,

1638
01:24:47,027 --> 01:24:50,194
based on overall morphology and shape.

1639
01:24:50,227 --> 01:24:53,694
Here we have a large
saltwater crocodile vertebra.

1640
01:24:53,727 --> 01:24:54,827
This is from
a 14-foot individual,

1641
01:24:54,860 --> 01:24:57,960
which is towards the upper bound
of saltwater crocodiles.

1642
01:24:57,994 --> 01:24:59,594
You have the same basic elements,

1643
01:24:59,627 --> 01:25:00,394
this is where it articulates

1644
01:25:00,427 --> 01:25:02,860
with the rest of the skeleton here.

1645
01:25:02,894 --> 01:25:05,994
The comparison in size
is just ridiculous.

1646
01:25:06,027 --> 01:25:08,694
This is a duck-billed dinosaur
vertebra.

1647
01:25:08,727 --> 01:25:10,127
Same element from the body

1648
01:25:10,160 --> 01:25:11,860
of roughly
an elephant-sized animal,

1649
01:25:11,894 --> 01:25:13,760
at least in weight and girth.

1650
01:25:13,794 --> 01:25:16,094
We're dealing with
a very, very large crocodile

1651
01:25:16,127 --> 01:25:19,260
that was roaming around in Cerrejon.

1652
01:25:19,294 --> 01:25:20,694
At 40 feet,

1653
01:25:20,727 --> 01:25:24,627
this is among the biggest
crocodiles ever found.

1654
01:25:24,660 --> 01:25:28,260
This new crocodile species
is on such an epic scale,

1655
01:25:28,294 --> 01:25:32,594
it could even give titanoboa
a fight for its life.

1656
01:25:34,960 --> 01:25:37,027
Any snake, even the largest,

1657
01:25:37,060 --> 01:25:41,360
is at its most vulnerable
when digesting a big meal.

1658
01:25:41,394 --> 01:25:43,894
Bloated by the smaller croc inside her,

1659
01:25:43,927 --> 01:25:48,194
titanoboa is a tempting target
for a super croc.

1660
01:25:50,927 --> 01:25:54,927
But she has an unexpected
defense mechanism.

1661
01:25:54,960 --> 01:25:56,827
She regurgitates her meal,

1662
01:25:56,860 --> 01:26:00,560
to focus all her energy on the enemy.

1663
01:26:06,627 --> 01:26:07,960
In the croc's death grip,

1664
01:26:07,994 --> 01:26:11,727
she retaliates by
throwing coils around it.

1665
01:26:20,327 --> 01:26:23,660
Exerting a pressure of
400 pounds per square inch,

1666
01:26:23,694 --> 01:26:26,560
this ultimate constrictor
squeezes the life

1667
01:26:26,594 --> 01:26:31,060
out of her biggest rival
in Cerrejon's lost world.

1668
01:26:47,694 --> 01:26:50,627
And now, 60 million years later,

1669
01:26:50,660 --> 01:26:55,227
it's time for the scientists
to meet her face to face.

1670
01:26:57,694 --> 01:26:59,794
After five years loan for research,

1671
01:26:59,827 --> 01:27:04,160
the Cerrejon fossils will soon
be returned to Colombia.

1672
01:27:04,194 --> 01:27:09,994
And in their place, a new vision
of titanoboa is about to emerge.

1673
01:27:11,627 --> 01:27:13,294
Jon Bloch and Jason head,

1674
01:27:13,327 --> 01:27:17,160
experts in the prehistoric world
titanoboa inhabited,

1675
01:27:17,194 --> 01:27:20,794
are finally going to meet
their discovery for real.

1676
01:27:22,360 --> 01:27:26,860
The life-sized model
is ready to view.

1677
01:27:26,894 --> 01:27:28,027
We've been talking about

1678
01:27:28,060 --> 01:27:30,160
how big this animal was for so long,

1679
01:27:30,194 --> 01:27:32,327
and we've marched out
how long it would look,

1680
01:27:32,360 --> 01:27:36,327
and we've made estimations
of its volume and its size,

1681
01:27:36,360 --> 01:27:38,127
but now we can actually see

1682
01:27:38,160 --> 01:27:40,194
a reconstruction sample
filling the space.

1683
01:27:40,227 --> 01:27:41,427
Yeah.

1684
01:27:41,460 --> 01:27:43,860
We can really get a sense
of how big this animal was.

1685
01:27:43,894 --> 01:27:45,727
I hope it'll be scaled correctly,

1686
01:27:45,760 --> 01:27:47,927
and it'll give people an opportunity

1687
01:27:47,960 --> 01:27:49,660
to really stand next to this thing

1688
01:27:49,694 --> 01:27:52,994
and really understand, you know,
how much bigger and strange

1689
01:27:53,027 --> 01:27:54,327
this snake would have been

1690
01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:56,294
than anything that is
on the planet today.

1691
01:27:56,327 --> 01:27:57,927
Yeah, that's right.

1692
01:27:57,960 --> 01:28:00,760
If the model passes
the scientists' scrutiny,

1693
01:28:00,794 --> 01:28:04,060
titanoboa will go on a world tour.

1694
01:28:11,727 --> 01:28:12,560
Come on, guys.

1695
01:28:12,594 --> 01:28:13,827
Okay.

1696
01:28:15,260 --> 01:28:17,194
Oh, my God.

1697
01:28:18,594 --> 01:28:19,560
Wow.

1698
01:28:19,594 --> 01:28:21,627
Wow.

1699
01:28:21,660 --> 01:28:23,594
Look at that.

1700
01:28:32,094 --> 01:28:33,294
Holy cow.

1701
01:28:33,327 --> 01:28:35,727
Gorgeous.

1702
01:28:35,760 --> 01:28:36,927
So the coloration

1703
01:28:36,960 --> 01:28:39,694
you modeled after an anaconda, kind of?

1704
01:28:39,727 --> 01:28:40,927
It started to blend.

1705
01:28:40,960 --> 01:28:43,960
Jason requested that I treat
with boa constrictor patterning

1706
01:28:43,994 --> 01:28:46,827
and the anaconda background.

1707
01:28:46,860 --> 01:28:48,860
Yeah, wow, it's amazing.

1708
01:28:48,894 --> 01:28:50,160
It's beautiful.

1709
01:28:50,194 --> 01:28:51,260
Well, thanks.

1710
01:28:51,294 --> 01:28:53,027
It's extraordinary to think

1711
01:28:53,060 --> 01:28:57,094
that this is the actual creature
derived from the single vertebra

1712
01:28:57,127 --> 01:29:00,627
that began this journey of discovery.

1713
01:29:00,660 --> 01:29:03,627
And there's one last
snake secret revealed

1714
01:29:03,660 --> 01:29:07,694
in the way hockley has
modeled the replica.

1715
01:29:07,727 --> 01:29:10,360
Titanoboa probably used gravity

1716
01:29:10,394 --> 01:29:15,027
to help move its enormous prey
down its throat.

1717
01:29:15,060 --> 01:29:18,594
He's captured that
in all its grotesque detail,

1718
01:29:18,627 --> 01:29:20,594
in this massive model.

1719
01:29:22,060 --> 01:29:23,594
Wow.

1720
01:29:23,627 --> 01:29:25,927
That's incredible.

1721
01:29:25,960 --> 01:29:29,294
Yeah, the scale is really amazing.

1722
01:29:29,327 --> 01:29:30,994
The scale that it's portrayed at

1723
01:29:31,027 --> 01:29:34,627
really brings the tremendous
size of this animal home.

1724
01:29:34,660 --> 01:29:39,627
It's mind boggling to think of
a living snake that large,

1725
01:29:39,660 --> 01:29:42,327
moving through an environment.

1726
01:29:42,360 --> 01:29:45,094
To really see it in its color,

1727
01:29:45,127 --> 01:29:47,294
with the skin and the muscle
underneath it

1728
01:29:47,327 --> 01:29:50,794
and in this lifelike pose,
really for the first time

1729
01:29:50,827 --> 01:29:53,627
in the whole time I've been
working on titanoboa,

1730
01:29:53,660 --> 01:29:57,194
really gives me an appreciation
for it as an animal.

1731
01:29:59,027 --> 01:30:01,827
We're really at the point
now where the snake has grown up

1732
01:30:01,860 --> 01:30:04,194
and we're giving away what we know,

1733
01:30:04,227 --> 01:30:07,194
essentially giving
titanoboa to the world.

1734
01:30:10,227 --> 01:30:14,694
Today, all that's left
of titanoboa's lush world

1735
01:30:14,727 --> 01:30:17,094
is this barren landscape,

1736
01:30:17,127 --> 01:30:20,027
the vast Cerrejon mine.

1737
01:30:20,060 --> 01:30:24,227
But it's our window onto
a world of super crocodiles

1738
01:30:24,260 --> 01:30:27,060
the size of small trucks

1739
01:30:27,094 --> 01:30:30,194
and turtles the size of bears.

1740
01:30:31,727 --> 01:30:34,594
Here among trees that are now coal,

1741
01:30:34,627 --> 01:30:37,194
titanoboa reigns supreme,

1742
01:30:37,227 --> 01:30:40,894
queen of the ancient
tropical rainforest.

1743
01:30:42,760 --> 01:30:46,660
In her domain, she hunts down her prey.

1744
01:30:48,894 --> 01:30:51,794
She mates and gives birth.

1745
01:30:52,894 --> 01:30:56,394
She fights off other ancient monsters.

1746
01:31:00,127 --> 01:31:04,894
Then, one day, her reign is over.

1747
01:31:08,160 --> 01:31:10,560
And she disappears...

1748
01:31:12,627 --> 01:31:15,527
...for 60 million years.