Thought to be a distant relative of the anaconda and boa constrictor, the snake - named "titanoboa" - was not venomous. Instead it crushed its prey with the constricting force of 400lbs per sq inch - the equivalent of lying under the weight of one and a half times the Brooklyn Bridge.

The fossils were exposed by excavation at the massive Cerrejon open-face coal mine in northern Colombia. In 2002 scientists had discovered at that site the remains of a tropical rainforest from the Palaeocene epoch - perhaps the planet's first.

As well as fossilised leaves and plants, they unearthed reptiles so big they defied imagination.

Very cool.