A giant snake may have once called India home, new research suggests.
Fossilized vertebrae found near coal mines in western India suggest the snake was between 36 and 50 feet long.
It is 8 feet longer than the largest snake known to man and nearly 17 feet longer than the largest living snake, the Associated Press reported this week.
The snake weighed a ton, researchers said in an article published in Scientific Reports on April 18.
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This giant reptile is believed to have roamed, or rather slithered across, the Earth some 47 million years ago.
The Associated Press said the researchers who discovered the snake called it “Vasuki indicus.”
As shown in the picture above, green anacondas can grow to about 30 feet long. However, researchers say snakes that lived in ancient India could have been up to 20 feet long. (Sylvain CORDIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
In Hinduism, there is a “mythical snake king, Vasuki, who is wrapped around the neck of the Hindu god Shiva,” study co-author Debajit Datta of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee told The Associated Press.
The snake likely constricts its prey and isn’t particularly fast.
“Given its large size, Vasuki was a slow-moving ambush predator that would subdue its prey by constricting,” Datta told The Associated Press.
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Datta speculates that the snake may have fed on “catfish, turtles, crocodiles and primitive whales.”
According to the Associated Press, researchers were able to estimate the size of the Wasuki snake by comparing the fossil vertebrae with those of living snakes.
This image provided by researchers in April 2024 shows a view of some of the vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a newly discovered extinct snake that lived about 47 million years ago. The snake is estimated to be nearly 50 feet long. (Sunil Bajpai, Dejit Datta, Poonam Verma Photo credit: Associated Press)
Giant snakes similar in size to the Wasuki snakes have been reported throughout the modern world.
However, these claims are often dismissed as hoaxes.
Cryptozoologists, or people who study “cryptozoology,” define it as “an animal that is claimed to exist but has never been proven to exist (such as Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster),” and they point to many of these supposed creatures. example.
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The Peruvian tourism website “Peru Travel and Life” stated that in South America, “Yacumama” and “Sachamama” are legendary giant snakes that are said to live in rivers.
The snakes were each described as being about 100 feet long.
Giant snakes are part of the mythology of many cultures, and some claim these beasts still live on Earth today. (iStock)
In a 1980 episode of the British television show “Mysterious World,” Belgian air force colonel Remy Van Lierde described a 50-foot-long snake that struck his helicopter over what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959. The sight of jumping towards him.
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“I felt and believed that if I was within its range, it would attack me,” Van Lierde said.
He continued, “I would say the head must have been 2 feet wide and 3 feet long. It could easily eat a person.”
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Van Lierde took a photo that he claims shows the snake. The authenticity of this photo is disputed.
In 2023, a video of a 50-foot snake living in Congo went viral on social media and was debunked by Reuters.
The Associated Press provided the report.
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