The 2,500-Pound Snake That Devoured Gigantic Crocodiles

Long ago, legend has it, the god Thor and the giant Hymir rowed to sea in search of Jörmungandr, a snake so huge it circled the Earth. Thor dropped a line baited with an ox head, which Jörmungandr nommed on, and with his bare hands reeled the beast in. Once the serpent was at the edge of the boat, though, Hymir got all nervous and cut the line. The moral of the story? I haven’t the slightest clue. But what I do know is that 60 million years ago, in the swampy waters of what is now Colombia, there lurked a serpent of similar hyperbole: titanoboa, by far the biggest snake that ever lived. At nearly 50 feet long and weighing in at 2,500 pounds, it was 10 times as heavy as the average green anaconda, a giant that now rules titanoboa’s stomping grounds… or slithering grounds, I guess you’d say. Titanoboa was so big, it pushed the boundaries of being able to exist on land and remain in accordance with the laws of physics. You, me, every cat and antelope and towering sauropod, we’ve all evolved under the constraints of gravity. Evolution got a bit carried away and produced the 100-foot blue whale, the biggest critter ever, only because gravity doesn’t affect giants as much in the sea...more

The article describes the Titanoboa as an "ambush hunter", "a constrictor of enormous proportions", "supersized" and an "apex predator".  Sounds like a description of our federal government.  Are there any good snake charmers out there?