What the longest snake that ever lived?

Snakes… some people hate them, some like them, some are even fascinated by them. People have found snakes interesting throughout history. Even kings and queens used to wear them as jewellery in ancient times! If you’ve visited a zoo with a reptile show, you’d realise that snakes are smooth and dry and not wet and slimy like their appearance. Having visited so many zoos and seen so many snakes, I’ve always wondered what was the longest snake that ever lived?

Longest snake alive today

Ranked no. 1, the longest snake alive today is the reticulated python. Found in tropical climates, this snake has diamond shaped patterns on their scales to help them camouflage, which comes in useful since they are ambush hunters. These snakes are shy and nocturnal; and they prefer to stay away from humans. The longest ever reticulated python was measured to be 10m (32.8 ft) long in Indonesia back in 1912! Don’t worry, usually these snakes grow to only about 3-6m in length (10 to 20 ft).

Longest snake ever

The winner of this title is the Titanoboa. These snakes could grow up to 14m (47 ft) long and archeologists have found 186 fossils of these ancient reptiles have been found in Columbia. They were believed to have eaten mainly lungfish or even crocodiles, turtles, birds and mammals that lived near rivers. Thankfully their descendants, like the anaconda, are not so big.

That’s interesting!