A snake stretching longer than a school bus and too thick to fit through a doorway may sound like a creature in a Hollywood bio-horror flick, but this one actually ruled the roost on part of the planet millions of years ago.
Weighing 2,500 pounds and stretching 48 feet long, Titanoboa — whose name combines "titanic" for its size and "boa" for its close relation to modern-day boa constrictors — roamed the Earth 65 million years ago and was the largest snake that has ever lived. Titanoboa: Monster Snake [ http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?show=140671 ], premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on the Smithsonian Channel, gives viewers an insight into the life of a species that was once the largest predator on Earth. The special will also air Monday at 6 p.m. ET and be available for viewing on the channel's website.
A life-size replica of the ancient snake appears in the film and was put on display at the National Museum of Natural History [ http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/ ] in Washington, as of Friday. It will remain in Washington until Jan. 6, 2013, after which it will begin a nationwide tour through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
"There's no question that facts can be far stranger than fiction," says David Royle, executive vice president of programming and production at the Smithsonian Channel. "You might say it sounds like Hollywood, but it's not fantasy. It's real-life discovery."
The first fossils of Titanoboa [ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2009-02-04-giant-snake_N.htm ] were discovered in a coal mine in northeastern Colombia during an expedition led by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2004. Fragments of the ancient snake's skull — a rare find since snake skull bones typically break into shards because of their fragile structure — revealed that it could open its jaw nearly 180 degrees, allowing it to swallow a crocodile. Moreover, the snake could squeeze its prey at 400 pounds per square inch, equivalent to the weight of three Eiffel Towers on top of one another.
According to Jason Head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the era's warm climate allowed the snake to grow this large and cooling temperatures may be a possible explanation for the disappearance of the snakes.
"The bigger an animal is, the higher temperature it needs to survive," says Head, a vertebrate paleontologist who helped conduct field work at the Colombian coal mine.
So is it possible for a snake of such enormity to come back into existence? Many scientists, including Head, say they would not rule out the possibility.
"I think if we saw global temperatures rise, we would see the living species of snakes potentially become larger," says Jack Conrad, research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "But it would take a period of a couple million years to evolve a species that was anywhere near the size of Titanoboa."
The coal mine site in Colombia has unveiled more than just one fascinating species. Scientists have also unearthed fossils of early bean, banana and chocolate plants as well as giant turtles and crocodiles, on which Titanoboa most likely preyed.
"We know so little about the tropical ecosystems of that time period that having any information is very valuable," says Catherine Badgley, a researcher at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. "The tropics were very unusual in ways that we would never be able to predict from modern ecosystems."
For paleontologists, the discovery of Titanoboa is a reminder that the fossil record is full of surprises.
"Every year, you see some new mind-blowing example of paleontology shattering our previous boundaries and greatly expanding our understanding of the world," Conrad says. "Titanoboa is a perfect example of that."
Responding to a report that a fisherman had reeled in a piranha on June 7, lake superintendent Jim Caldwell brought the fish to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, where it was identified as a pacu. Some reports say another pacu was seen a couple of weeks later.
Caldwell said he is still swimming in the lake nearly every day. Pacus primarily eat nuts, aquatic vegetation and snails, he told KDSK, and pose no real threat to humans.
Residents of Papua New Guinea may beg to differ. There, according to British fisherman Jeremy Wade, the pacu is known as the "ball cutter." In 2011, Wade said locals informed him that two fisherman had died from blood loss after something in the water had bitten off their testicles, according to the Metro [ http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/886011-testicle-eating-fish-that-killed-two-men-caught-by-british-angler ].
"The locals told me that this thing was like a human in the water, biting at the testicles of fishermen," Wade said.
Though pacus are native to the Amazon Basin, they were released into Papua New Guinea waters in the 1990s as part of an initiative to boost fisheries [ http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0113e/A0113E06.htm ].
How Invasive Snakes Have Turned Guam Into a Spider-Infested Horror Show
Images via Isaac Chellman.
George Dvorsky Sep 14, 2012 7:30 AM
Back in the 1940s, the highly invasive brown treesnake was accidently introduced to the island of Guam. In just four decades, these snakes had wiped out 10 of 12 native bird species, with the remaining two species forced to live in small areas, protected by snake traps. The result: an island with no bird chirps — and a 40-fold increase in the island's spider population.
And as a recent research expedition has revealed, the spiders have indeed taken over the island — a frightening example of what can happen when a critical predator is removed from an ecosystem.
Start counting
The research was conducted by biologists from Rice University, the University of Washington and the University of Guam, who were among the first to study how the loss of forest birds were impacting on the island's ecosystem. Without the insectivorous birds there to bother the spiders, the arachnids have largely taken over the place.
And as lead researcher Haldre Rogers observed, spiderwebs have indeed become a ubiquitous feature of the canopy; her team had to carry sticks and constantly wipe away the webs as they were making their way through the jungle.
And dealing with all the spiderwebs was in fact part of the job. By counting spiderwebs on both Guam and the nearby islands in the Marianas Island chain, the researchers were able to get a sense of what has happened on the island, compared to the other locations where the treesnake has not made an appearance.
And to do so, Rogers and her team — with tape measures and counters in hand — scoured the spider-infested island over the course of four months, counting webs. (So, you want to be an ecologist...)
Natural experiment
Even though this is a disturbing turn of events, at least Guam is proving to be a rather remarkable "natural experiment" for the researchers. Normally, you'd have to build a large exclosure, to simulate this sort of effect. But Guam is offering the scientists a unique real-world example of an ecosystem gone wrong, the result of a large-scale unintentional disruption of a natural system.
They discovered that, depending on the location, Guam contains anywhere from two to 40 times the normal number of spiders. Their research shows just how important insectivorous birds can be to an ecosystem. The researchers worry (and predict) that other locations in which insectivorous birds are on the decline could see a similar increase in spider populations. The closing words of their study ends rather ominously: "If insectivorous birds continue to decline, we will likely be living in a more spider-dominant world in the future."
In Guam, the treesnake is so problematic that the U.S. spends more than $1 million each year making sure airplanes and cargo are snake-free as they leave the American territory. And hunting them has not gotten any easier, since they are an elusive, nocturnal predator ["But the nocturnal reptile is hard to find, especially on the island itself; residents and tourists rarely see them, and even those who actively hunt the snakes often come up empty-handed, according to the release.", http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/how-alien-snakes-have-helped-spiders-overrun-guam (no comments yet)].
Moving forward, the researchers will continue to study the island, paying particular attention to whether or not the spider population will continue to increase.
Wasps are predators to the redback spider. Photo: Kitty Hill
September 12, 2012
A native wasp, largely unstudied for more than 200 years, is being hailed as a predator to the dangerous Australian redback spider.
The Agenioideus nigricornis wasp was first described in 1775 by Danish entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius.
It can still be found across much of Australia but its role in containing redback populations only became apparent when a Western Australian family found one with a paralysed redback in their backyard.
Florian Irwin, 9, spotted the wasp dragging the spider to its nest and his father photographed the event and kept the specimens.
Andy Austin, from the University of Adelaide's Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, said the discovery prompted researchers to study the wasp more closely.
''It's the first record of a wasp preying on redback spiders and it contributes greatly to our understanding of how these wasps behave in Australia,'' Professor Austin said.
Research has now revealed the wasp stings and paralyses its prey and then drags it back to its nest, where it lays an egg on it.
The redback remains alive and once the egg hatches, the larval wasp feeds on the spider.
''Redbacks are one of the most dangerous species in Australia and they're mostly associated with human dwellings, which has been a problem for many years,'' Professor Austin said.
''The redback spider-hunting wasp is doing its part to keep the population of redbacks down, but it doesn't hunt all the time and is unlikely to completely eradicate the spiders,'' he said.
A wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi) starting to devour a dark bush cricket at Cosford Hall, Suffolk. Photograph: Adam Gretton
In seconds the silk strands bound the victim like steel mesh and all we could see of the bush cricket was the lemon stripe of its underbelly
Mark Cocker guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 August 2012 16.00 EDT
What is it precisely about spiders that makes them so disliked as predators? Why did the late great Tony Hare, co-founder of the environmental group PlantLife, always call them – a little tongue in cheek, it has to be said – "the agents of Satan"? As Ted Hughes pointed out in his wonderful poem Thrushes, even our favourite songbird is a terrifying killer: "Nothing but bounce and stab / And a ravening second." In fact the victim in the horror scene we witnessed is itself a predator. It was a dark bush cricket, that bumbling long-legged relative of the grasshoppers, whose soft chirrup is now the soundtrack to East Anglia's late-summer evenings. Perhaps we forgive thrushes and bush crickets because they serenade us with their songs; the spider, by contrast, is such a silent killer.
This one ceased sucking the last juice of a fly it had snared, and dropped like fate itself on to the bush cricket that had tumbled into the web. The way the spider bound the victim was terrifying both for its speed and efficiency. The spinner glands at the rear of her abdomen fired out a belt of silk strands as fine as mist. Yet in seconds it bound the victim like steel mesh and all we could see of the bush cricket was the lemon stripe of its underbelly. Before she started to finely eat it, injecting salival juices that dissolve the inner tissues, the bush cricket had hung briefly upside down from one long leg like a carcass dangling on a butcher's meat hook. I found it so macabre (since I love bush crickets) that I suggested we free it, but the killer was actually a remarkable and beautiful beast. It was a wasp spider and this individual was one of only about 20 ever recorded in Suffolk (in Norfolk there have been just four). However, wasp spiders, first recorded in Britain in 1922, are spreading rapidly northwards, possibly aided by their predation of grasshoppers.
Some of the debilitating effects of banana spider venom include loss of muscle control, breathing problems, paralysis and even death — but it has also been known to cause painful erections in men, which can last for hours and damage the penis permanently. That might not sound like a very enticing consolation for those suffering from erectile dysfunction, but scientists now believe that the potent neurotoxin could be developed into a drug that rivals Viagara.
Since Viagara and other similar drugs are only effective in two thirds of men, there is room on the market for an alternative. A recent report [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01978.x/full ] in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that a drug derived from banana spider venom was effective in helping elderly rodents overcome erectile dysfunction.
Since it works using a different pathway than that of Viagara, there is hope that it could close the gap and cure erectile dysfunction for good. That is, assuming it works as well on people as it does on rodents.
The Phoneutria nigriventer spider is typically found walking through South American jungles at night. They are unusual in that they don't maintain a lair or spin a web, opting instead to wander the forest floor in search of prey. By day the intimidating arachnids are known to hide out under rocks and fallen logs. They are aptly named "banana spiders" because they are often found in banana crates shipped from Brazil.
One alarming incident [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/4489033.stm ] saw a British pub chef bitten after receiving a crate of bananas from South America. The chef likely saved his own life by snapping a picture of the little culprit to later show doctors. Experts at the Bristol Zoo were then brought in to identify it and suggest an antidote.
The spiders only bite humans to defend themselves, though, as their venom is meant for small prey. And since their fangs are designed for penetrating smaller creatures, bites on humans do not always lead to envenomization.
What lies beneath.... Diver braves the waters to swim with deadly 26-foot anaconda Swiss diver Franco Banfi went to the Mato Grosso region of Brazil to capture these amazing close-up of enormous anaconda snakes in their natural habitat These underwater beasts feed on rodents, birds and fish, lurking close to surface coiled and ready to strike 9 November 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230499/Diver-braves-waters-swim-deadly-26-foot-anaconda.html [with comments]
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men.
Python Challenge 2013, a month-long event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is open to hunters and non-hunters alike.
But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.
"I just thought it was as exciting as could be. It's a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity," said contestant Ron Polster, a retired salesman from Ohio whose closest encounter with the swamp has been from the highway heading south for the winter.
Participants pay a $25 entry fee and take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference.
The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured and $1,000 for the longest python.
A Burmese python found in Florida last year set records as the largest ever captured in the state at 17-feet, 7-inches. The snake weighed nearly 165 pounds (75 kg).
FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said the number of registered contestants reached about 500 this week and was growing, with people coming from 32 states.
The stated goal of the competition is to raise awareness of the threat Burmese pythons pose to the Everglades ecosystem. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia and have no known predators in Florida.
The contest also serves as a pilot program to determine whether regular hunting competitions can cull the growing population of the invasive species, said Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife expert from the University of Florida who helped create the competition.
Python Challenge rules require contestants to kill specimens on the spot in a humane fashion, recommending shooting the snakes precisely through the brain.
"I was hoping there would be a lot of machetes and not a lot of guns," said Polster, the retired salesman. He said he worries "these idiots will be firing all over the place."
Shawn Heflick, star of the National Geographic "Wild" television show "Python Hunters," told Reuters that despite the formidable size of the snakes, he expects the swamp itself, with its alligators, crocodiles and venomous snakes, to pose a greater threat to the contestants.
"You get these people going down there, they'll get lost, they'll get dehydrated, they'll get sucked dry by mosquitoes," Heflick said.
Segelson said the wildlife agency will provide training on the use of GPS devices and on identifying venomous snakes at the kick-off event. In the meantime, she said, contestants should be familiarizing themselves with the Everglades environment, just as they should before entering any other strange territory.
Heflick said most of the contestants likely were drawn to the Python Challenge by the romantic mystique of bagging a giant predator. He expects few will last long in the hunt.
"The vast majority of them will never see a python. The vast majority of them will probably curtail their hunting very quickly when they figure out there's a lot of mosquitoes, it's hot, it's rather boring sometimes - most of the time really, and I think a lot of them will go home," Heflick said.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
