A new study suggests giant snakes may have once called India home.
Fossilized vertebrae found near coal mines in western India indicate the snake was between 36 and 50 feet long.
That’s up to 8 feet longer than the largest snake known to man and nearly 17 feet longer than the largest living snake, the Associated Press reported this week.
Researchers said in a Scientific Reports article published April 18 that the snake could have weighed up to a ton.
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This giant reptile is thought to have roamed, or rather crawled, the Earth about 47 million years ago.
Researchers who discovered the snake named it Vaschi indicus, according to the Associated Press.
The green anaconda seen above can grow to about 30 feet long. But the snakes that lived in ancient India could have been up to 20 feet long, researchers said. (Sylvain Cordier/Gamma Raffo, via Getty Images)
Study co-author Debasjit Dutta of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, told The Associated Press that Hinduism has a “mythical serpent king, Vasuki, who wraps around the neck of the Hindu god Shiva.”
The snake likely constricted its prey and was not particularly fast.
“Given its large size, Vasuki was a slow-moving ambush predator, constricting its prey and subduing it,” Dutta told The Associated Press.
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Datta speculated that the snake probably lived on “catfish, turtles, crocodiles and primitive whales.”
Researchers were able to estimate the size of Vasqui indicus by comparing fossilized vertebrae with those of living snakes, according to the Associated Press.
This image provided by researchers in April 2024 shows part of a newly discovered vertebra of Vasqui indicus, an extinct snake that dates back approximately 47 million years. The snake was estimated to reach approximately 50 feet in length. (Sunil Bajpayee, Devajit Dutta, Poonam Verma, via AP)
Giant snakes similar in size to Vasuki indicus are still reported around the world in modern times.
However, these claims are usually dismissed as hoaxes.
Cryptozoologists, or people who study “cryptid animals” (defined as “animals that are claimed to exist but whose existence has not been proven (such as the Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster)”) It points out many examples of possible creatures.
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According to the Peruvian travel website “Peruvian Travel and Life,” “Yakumama” and “Sachamama” are legendary giant snakes that are said to live in the rivers of South America.
Both of these snakes are described as being approximately 100 feet long.
Giant snakes are part of the mythology of many cultures, and some claim that these beasts still live on Earth today. (St. Petersburg)
In a 1980 episode of the British TV show The Mysterious World, Belgian Air Force Colonel Remy van Lierde was flying over what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1959 when a helicopter lunged at him. He talked about a snake that was 50 feet long.
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“I feel and believe that if I had been in its range, it would have hit me,” Van Lierde said.
“The head was definitely two feet wide and three feet long,” he added. “It could easily have been eaten by a human.”
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Van Lierde took a photo that he claims shows a snake. There is debate over the authenticity of the photo.
In 2023, a video making similar claims about a 50-foot-long snake in the Congo went viral on social media and was debunked by Reuters.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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