Fossils of Largest Snake To Have Ever Lived Discovered in Kutch

New Delhi: Fossils of one of the largest snakes to have ever lived on earth have been discovered in the Kutch area of Gujarat , states a new research from IIT-Roorkee. The researchers dated the fossils to the Middle Eocene period, roughly 47 million years ago.

The fossilized vertebrae appeared to be from a fully-grown snake estimated to be roughly between 11 and 15 metre long. The researchers from IIT-Roorkee found 27 “mostly well-preserved” bones forming the snake’s spinal column from the Panandhro Lignite mine in the Kutch region.

The length of this now-extinct snake is comparable in size only to the extinct Titanoboa, known to be the longest snake to have ever lived. It was a slow moving predator like an anaconda. The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The researchers have named this newly discovered snake species ‘Vasuki Indicus’ (V. Indicus) after the great snake king of Hindu mythology. This snake is part of the now extinct madtsoiidae family, known to have lived across a broad geography, including Africa, Europe and India about 56 to 34 million years ago.