A giant among snakes

Snakes big enough to eat elephants, or at least their ancestors, slithered around Egypt some 40 million years ago. By comparing the fossil vertebrae of a snake called Gigantophis to those of the largest modern snakes, Jason Head of the Smithsonian Institution estimated that the extinct snake could grow to 10.7 metres in length, more than 10 per cent longer than its largest living relatives. Head says it may have preyed on basal proboscidians, the ancestors of modern elephants.