This new display will either give you nightmares or cure your ophidiophobia, or fear of snakes.
Aquatic and weighing about 2,500 pounds, the Titanoboa is now extinct. It squeezed its prey, crushing and devouring it whole in an anaconda-like manner. For weeks I got by on one supper.
In one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world, La Guajira, Colombia, scientists working on Titanoboa fossils found evidence of its existence 60 million years ago.
The site also contained remains of enormous turtles and crocodiles, which served as food for Titanoboa. The duplicate was delivered in seven pieces to the Burke Museum in Seattle. The major components are a foam core, Fiberglas, and epoxy, and the sections are assembled by hand-cranked worm gears.
