What's The Story Of Vasuki Indicus? A 50-Ft Snake, Larger Than T-Rex, That Roamed India 47 Mn Years Ago

Vasuki Indicus Snake Story: Fossil remains found in Gujarat's Kutch suggest that this snake species was a slow-moving ambush predator. The discovery sheds light on India's prehistoric biodiversity.

Life-like reconstruction of the vertebrae of Vasuki in dorsal (top) view and their most-likely position in the vertebral column highlighted in the artistic rendition of a madtsoilid snake.

Source : x/@iitroorkee

Vasuki indicus discovery: A nearly 50 feet long snake species — one of the longest and largest in recorded history — once existed in the Indian subcontinent. The reptile, Vasuki indicus, lived in India nearly 47 million years ago, fossil remains found from Gujarat’s Panandhro Lignite Mine in Kutch suggest. The species was discovered by Prof. Sunil Bajpai and Debajit Datta from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, and their find sheds light on the prehistoric biodiversity of India.

“It is worth noting that the largest body-length estimates of Vasuki appear to exceed that of Titanoboa, even though the vertebral dimensions of the Indian taxon are slightly smaller than those of Titanoboa,” Bajpai and Datta wrote in their study published in Scientific Reports.

The fossil remains reveal several intriguing details about the species.

Estimated to be 11-15 metres long, the snake species was bigger than the size of a T. rex. The large size of the Vasuki indicus suggested that it was a slow-moving ambush predator, comparable to the modern-day anaconda, the authors noted In the study published earlier this week.

The species was given the specific name of Vasuki indicus in acknowledgement the country of its origin, India. Vasuki is revered as the king of the snakes in Hindu mythology, and is worshiped on special days like Nag Panchami.

IIT Roorkee's Prof. Sunil Bajpai & Debajit Datta discovered Vasuki Indicus, a 47-million-year-old snake species in Kutch, Gujarat. Estimated at 11-15 meters, this extinct snake sheds light on India's prehistoric biodiversity. Published in Scientific Reports. #SnakeDiscovery pic.twitter.com/ruLsfgPQCc

— IIT Roorkee (@iitroorkee) April 18, 2024

What We Know About Vasuki Indicus 

Vasuki indicus belongs to the Madtsoiidae family, and “thrived during a warm geological interval", the study noted. Researchers suggest that the warm tropical temperatures of Gondwanaland, averaging around 28°C, may have contributed to the substantial size and growth of this giant reptile. There is a recognised correlation suggesting that higher ambient temperatures can enable larger growth in animals.

Madtsoiids were also found in Europe and Africa, besides Asia. The IIT-Roorkee professors’ findings suggest Vasuki indicus represents a large lineage of Madtsoiidae that originated in the Indian subcontinent and then spread to southern Eurasia, before reaching North Africa around 50 million years ago — that’s nearly 15 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. 

Madtsoiidae, an extinct lineage of terrestrial snakes, thrived on the Indian subcontinent over a span of approximately 100 million years, from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Pleistocene, dating from roughly 98 million to 11,000 years ago. During the Late Cretaceous period, the supercontinent Pangea had fragmented into two major landmasses: Laurasia, encompassing North America, Europe, and Northern Asia to the north; and Gondwanaland to the south, which included present-day Africa, Antarctica, South America, Australia, and the Indian subcontinent.

The fossils of Vasuki indicus extracted from the early Lutetian grey shale layers of the Naredi Formation at the Kutch mine include an “excellently preserved, partial vertebral column”. 

The discovery sheds light on the biogeographic patterns of dispersion and diversification within the Madtsoiidae, particularly across Gondwanan continents. The presence of this giant snake in the Eocene of India indicates a complex history of faunal exchanges between the Indian subcontinent and other landmasses prior to complete integration into the Eurasian plate.