Producer: Peuli Bakshi
Measuring longer than a school bus and dwarfing even the largest modern anacondas and pythons, Vasuki indicus is believed to have been one of the largest snakes to have ever existed.
In 2005, fossilized vertebrae were mistaken for remnants of an ancient crocodile. In 2023, researchers revealed that they belonged to the grand Vasuki indicus serpent.
Its estimated size would have been 10.9 meters to 15.2 meters in length, co authors of this study, Debajit Datta and Sunil Bajpai from IIT Roorkee told CNN in a joint email.
As per the authors, Vasuki indicus could have been as large as Titanoboa. Titanoboa weighed around 1,140 kilogrammes (2,500 pounds).
“There are a number of possible reasons for its large size which range from favourable environment with ample food resources to lack of natural predators,” Datta and Bajpai said.
Datta and Bajpai think Vasuki indicus likely lived on land rather than in water, similar to anacondas, but its big size probably prevented it from climbing trees.
“Associated fossils collected from the rocks that yielded Vasuki include ray fish, bony fish (catfish), turtles, crocodiles and even primitive whales. Vasuki may have preyed upon some of these,” they said.
The snake was likely a slow-moving, ambush predator that subdued its prey by constriction or squeezing them to death, as per Datta and Bajpai.
“Higher ambient temperatures would have increased the internal body temperature and metabolic rate of Vasuki which in turn would have allowed it to grow so large,” the authors said.