Titanoboa (the Whitney Houston of snakes)

 Sometime between 1690 - 1700 the term 'snake in the grass' was first used to describe a treacherous person, especially one who feigns friendship. Fast forward 300 or so years and I'm standing there in my living room, being accused by my mentally ill housemate of the same thing. Idioms and arguments aside, the homo sapien's fear and revilement of snakes has a long history, but maybe those Ophidiophobes should count themselves lucky that they don't live in the Paleocene epoch 58 million years ago  - cover your eyes, we're about to go big.

 Immediately following Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event which closed the curtains on all non-avian dinosaurs (and a lot of the supporting actors from other species) much of the remaining life on Earth underwent a process of rapid diversification called 'adaptive radiation.' Birds, fish, snakes and mammals diversified into many various forms that we recognise today - horses, whales, iguanas, tunas, eels et al. Mammals would obviously go on to great things but recent fossil evidence in Colombia shows between 60-58 million years ago reptiles and snakes near the Equator grew to gigantic sizes due to extreme climate conditions. Enter, Titanoboa:

Titanboa is the largest species of snake ever discovered, and fossil disocveries in the Cerrejon Formation in La Guajira, Colombia, show that these bad boys grew up to 14.5 meters/48 feet long. Quite remarkably for a snake fossil finding, a Titanboa skull was recovered in the dig, as well as fossils from other monstrously large species, such as the Carbonemys, which is the largest turtle ever discovered, with a shell that measured 5.8 feet long! Imagine getting to spend the day in hanging out in a Paeleocene equatorial South American swamp - I don't know about you, but I'm packing pepper spray in my purse.

Titanboa spent most of its time underwater to support its massive frame, and would chow down on crocodiles and large fish in the few times it ate. Much like snakes today, and Whitney Houston in the early 1990s, the Titanboa could unlock its jaw to slay its prey.

 In 2012, a life sized statue was on show in New York's Grand Central:

The findings of Titanboa and Carbonemys tell us that equatorial South America recovered fairly quickly after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction. The higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and higher temperatures also tell us that many animals and plants are able to cope with extreme tropical climates -  which is just as well considering the alarming global warming rate we are experiencing.

Ophidiophobes - you can open your eyes now.

Titanomyrma (Giant ant)

I was recently reminded of the importance of conflict resolution when my housemate and I had such a blazing row that a week later I am still in duck and cover position in the corner of my living room, removing shrapnel from my hair. Like many other fighting homo sapiens, we'd have been wise to learn from Dorylus Molestus, which despite having a latin name that sounds like an allegation against your grandma, is in fact a living genus of east African army ants. So wise is Dorylus that when two colonies of the same species meet, they usually change marching direction to avoid conflicts. Dorylus are the largest known extant ant species, with the queen growing to a whopping 8 centimeters.

The discovery of a similarly-sized 50 million year old queen ant fossil raised eyebrows due to its enormous size  and because it was found in Wyoming. Like Dorylus, the now-named Titanomyrma could grow up to 8 centimetres in length, and so is comparable size-wise to that of a modern hummingbird:

How giant ants ended up in both North America and Europe is the big question, and to find the answer we have to look again at the changing climates of the Eocene epoch in the Paleogene period. The hyperthermals were geologically brief periods of global warming 55.5 - 52 million years ago caused by a massive carbon release from thawing permafrost. This caused many ice free land bridges between Europe and North America, which allowed different animal and plant species to cross.over.  Titanomyrma would have crossed over in this period, and  its discovery in Wyoming tells us that Wyoming in the early Eocene had a climate similar to that of East Africa today.