LOOK! DOWN ON THE GROUND, IT'S A SNAKE! IT'S A MONSTER! IT'S SUPER-SNAKE!!!

You have to love this story, because it reminds us that this earth on which we're riding is not a static thing (not to be confused with static cling).

And besides, how many times in your life do you get to type the phrase "Super Snake?"

Here we see a Los Angeles Times photo of a python, there to show you the scale of what he (or she) is crawling on.

It is a fossil of a vertebrae of a previously undiscovered species of snake justly named "Titanoboa."

According to this story in the Los Angeles Times, recently discovered remains of Titanoboa indicate it weighed 2,500 pounds, was as long as a school bus and could swallow a crocodile.

This, indeed, makes an anaconda, currently the world's largest snake, look like a red wiggler.

Found in an open coal pit in Columbia, where a substance, when burned, may just ensure that some other species we now know will become extinct, Titanoboa required a warmer climate than we have today.

As the Times reported: "Because snakes and other reptiles are coldblooded -- technically, poikilothermic -- they rely on heat in the environment. Generally, the farther from the equator that a reptile lives, the smaller it has to be.Extrapolating from the energy requirements of modern snakes, the team estimated that Titanoboa required an average temperature of 86 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, somewhat higher than the modern average of about 83 degrees in coastal Colombia."

So there you have it folks, everything old, and by this we mean REALLY OLD, is new again. The more coal we burn, the warmer we make the earth, the more likely that our great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will be fending off attacks by giant snakes.

Just one more reason to do what we can to stop global warming or, as my friend Sue Fordyce at the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area suggested at the end of one of my previous posts, "climate change."

Whatever you want to call it, I call the threat of bringing back the era of giant snakes one more reason to lower your carbon foot-print, although it would make a great summer blockbuster...paging Joel Schumacher!