Re: Huge Freakin' Snake!

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> > Considering this super-snake lived only a few million years after the end
> > Cretaceous extinction event,  I wonder if this was an attempt by 
> > ectotherms
> > to occupy the megapredator roles vacated by dinosaur extinction?
>
> Either that, or they couldn't reach such sizes while dinosaurs and marine 
> reptiles were around -
> either because they'd eat such a (presumably) slow snake or out-compete 
> it.

I think constricting snakes just can't help it: they automatically get as 
large as they can possibly get away with. And that depends on four factors: 
food availability, climate, tyrannosaurs, and mosasaurs. Two of these 
factors differed between the Cretaceous and the middle Paleocene...