Feb 09 2009
Giant Snake bones: a sign of things to come.
Last week, the discovery of the largest ever snake bones in a coal mine in Columbia stunned the scientific world. The fossils are from a snake that lived about 60 million years ago and are the remains of a giant snake that would have been the length of a city bus (45 feet) and about 3 feet in width. Snakes are very sensitive to hot and cold weather and the size of the snake can give an indication of the temperature of a given place and time. It makes the snake a type of thermometer. The size of these snake bones indicate that the temperature of this area was about 4-6 degrees hotter than it is now. Climate Model projections indicate that global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century. If the temperature of the earth is rising 1/2 a degree every 10 years - we could start to seem some pretty big snakes around.
