As you’ll know from the main Nature News site, “Researchers have found fossils of the biggest known snake in the world, a discovery that could shed light on the climate of the tropics in the past.”

Obviously a giant snake was always going to make massive media impact. Here are some highlights.

Much is being made of the fact that this snake could – and possibly did – eat a crocodile. Researcher Jonathan Bloch, of the University of Florida, is also getting a lot of play for his comment that, “The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie Anaconda is not as big as the one we found.”

One man who’s not so impressed is Ian Stephens, curator of herpetology at London Zoo. In an ‘expert view’, published by the Guardian, he admits “This is a bloody big snake.” But he goes on to say:

The largest snakes now are around the 30ft mark, but there are always rumours of bigger snakes going round. I still think there are 10-metre snakes out there, so if Titanoboa is just over 13 metres, it’s not really that much longer. I was expecting this snake to be much bigger than it is. My guess is it won’t be long before someone finds fossil evidence for a 50ft snake. Now that would impress me.

As ever, the best headline belongs to the Sun, who have cristened the beast ‘Rocky Bal-boa’. Metro runs them close with “At 14m in length, this is one snake you wouldn’t want to meet on a plain”.

Image: reconstruction illustration of the giant snake / Jason Bourque.