The Vasuki indicus specimen dates back 47 million years and is more than double the average size of similar snakes, like pythons.
Researchers in India have discovered a giant extinct snake, measuring up to 50 feet long and believed to be the largest madtsoiid snake ever recorded. The Vasuki indicus specimen dates back 47 million years and is almost double the average size of similar snakes, like pythons.Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee discovered an 'excellently preserved, partial vertebral column' of the snake, according to their study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Researchers named it Vasuki, which comes from well-known Hindu myth about the serpent Vāsuki, which is wrapped around the neck of Lord Shiva, a supreme deity in the Hindu tradition of Shaivism.The snake was likely slow-moving and too large to be forager, researchers said, noting it is more likely that it was an ambush predator that constricted its prey like a python.
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