Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures

@article{Head2009GiantBS,
  title={Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures},
  author={Jason J. Head and Jonathan I. Bloch and Alexander K. Hastings and Jason R. Bourque and Edwin Alberto Cadena and Fabiany Herrera and P. D. Polly and Carlos Jaramillo},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2009},
  volume={457},
  pages={715-717}
}
The largest extant snakes live in the tropics of South America and southeast Asia where high temperatures facilitate the evolution of large body sizes among air-breathing animals whose body temperatures are dependant on ambient environmental temperatures (poikilothermy). Very little is known about ancient tropical terrestrial ecosystems, limiting our understanding of the evolution of giant snakes and their relationship to climate in the past. Here we describe a boid snake from the oldest known… 
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180 Citations

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