Where did the snakes on earth come from? A huge ancient snake ate crocodiles
I wanted to write another biographical and historical review on boa constrictors and pythons, but after delving into the literature, I fell into complete despair... there is such a mess going on with different theories that I just give up. Ppts. They unite whoever with whom, as long as they don’t show off! Someone writes that ordinary boa constrictors and Madagascar acranthophis are almost the same thing (which seems logical, but you’ll get stuck with geography), someone unites all Madagascars with the West African boa constrictors Calabaria (chebleya!?!?)! Some believe that pythons are close to xenopeltis and American bicolor snakes ( Loxocemidae), and some - what about blind snake-like rolls ( Anilius)...
You read and it begins to seem that they are now simply building phylogenetic trees using a scam of random numbers...
So I’ll just describe in a few words for show the classical theory, dating back to the mid-20th century.
As you know, pythons and boas are completely different families, differing in skull bones, methods of reproduction, etc.
Boas in the narrow sense ( Boinae), including the boa constrictors themselves ( Boa constrictor and Madagascars), smooth-lipped epicrates with anacondas (they are now together, gee!), narrow-bellied coralli and candos, are of Gondwanan origin.
Boa constrictor
As many of you know, in the Mesozoic the super-mega-proto-continent Pangea spread into two halves - northern (Lurasia) and southern (Gondwana - South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and India with Arabia). Many interesting creatures, considered archaic, primitive, relict, etc., are of Gondwanan origin (this is the Jura - early Cretaceous range). These include marsupials, onychophorans, many interesting and little-known insects (like the giant “crickets” of vets), a whole bunch of different curious ferns and gymnosperms... and boas, actually.
Sanzinia madagascariensis
Further tectonic movements led to what we see now - South America connected with North America, Africa with Arabia (and, separately, India) joined Eurasia, Antarctica floated away to who knows where, and only Australia remained relatively intact.
Boas from South America partially penetrated into North America - Epicrates proved to be especially successful in this sense, giving a wonderful bouquet of species in Central America and the Caribbean islands. Coralli were a little less successful in this.
How events developed in Africa is not entirely clear. In any case, now there are no boas there, they are preserved only in Madagascar, since almost no one has been able to move there (since its isolation 100 million years ago) for some unknown reasons! With Madagascar, in general, everything is somehow too beautiful to be true. Boas, iguanas, and turtles are preserved there Podocnemididae, there is even a separate subfamily of colubrids Pseudoxyrhophiinae, and a bunch of other non-reptilian things...
Nothing much is known about India. But we know about Australia and all of Oceania. Almost everywhere there, boas have become extinct, with the exception of isolated, widely scattered points where species of a strange kind live Candoia(this is New Guinea, some islands of Indonesia, and Melanesia - Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa, etc.).
Candoia aspera
As for Antarctica, some terrestrial life persisted there until the end of the Paleogene. After that, all the continents floated too far to the north, and there was a wide ocean around Antarctica. The Southern Circumpolar Current formed there, turning the former green continent into a refrigerator. In short, everything there froze to hell.
I probably won’t write about small boa constrictors like Ungaliophis and Tropidophis - there is a complete mess there with mutual kinship... the same thing with boa constrictors ( Erycinae).
And you can write about real pythons. I mean, about Pythoninae.
Apparently, they originated somewhere in Eurasia. In any case, the earliest paleontological finds (Eocene) and a number of molecular data indicate this (it is unrealistic to name the exact geographical location). Apparently, the first pythons were quite similar to modern pythons of the genus Python. They went to Africa and, across all of Asia, to the islands of Indonesia, where they settled on the islands and ended up in Australasia. There, in New Guinea and Australia, mass speciation began, somewhere in the Oligocene-Miocene! Where we now know many species from genera Liasis, Apodora, Morelia, Aspidites, Bothrochilus, Antaresia... Paradise for pythons)))
Broghammerus reticulatus
Bothrochilus boa
Morelia carinata
Liasis mackloti
Titanoboa! Reconstruction Titanoboa cerrejonensis
Something like this. Once again, I’ll make a reservation that there is so much confusion among boas and pythons (and other trachyboas) that there is no way to clear it up. Taxonomists will argue about this for another 10-15 years, no less... there are, for example, a number of arguments in favor of the same Gondwanan origin of pythons (although I don’t like this hypothesis at all).
Sources:
1. Noonan, B. P., & Chippindale, P. T. (2006). Dispersal and vicariance: the complex evolutionary history of boid snakes. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 40(2), 347-358.
2. Scanlon, J. D. (2001). Montypythonoides: the Miocene snake Morelia riversleighensis (Smith & Plane, 1985) and the geographical origin of pythons. MEMOIR-ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALASIAN PALAEONTOLOGISTS, 25, 1-36.
3. Slowinski, J. B., & Lawson, R. (2002). Snake phylogeny: evidence from nuclear and mitochondrial genes. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 24(2), 194-202.
4. Vences, M., Glaw, F., Kosuch, J., Böhme, W., & Veith, M. (2001). Phylogeny of South American and Malagasy boine snakes: molecular evidence for the validity of Sanzinia and Acrantophis and biogeographic implications. Copeia, 2001(4), 1151-1154.
Many people believe that snakes reproduce solely by laying eggs. There is some truth in this belief; most creeping creatures reproduce this way. However, there are also viviparous reptiles. How do snakes give birth? We will try to answer this question in this article.
How does conception occur?
Before snakes give birth to their offspring, conception occurs in one way or another. Reptiles are divided into females and males, which are endowed with the corresponding genital organs. During conception, the snakes' tails touch while the male inserts his sexual organ into the female's cloaca. After this, after some time, most creeping creatures lay eggs. However, viviparity or ovoviviparity also occurs. What is it?
Reproduction by ovoviviparity
This unpronounceable word was coined by zoologists who observed snakes giving birth. With this type of reproduction, the female keeps the eggs within herself until the babies hatch from them. The mother's circulatory system penetrates the egg, thanks to which the fetus is nourished until birth.
All boas, asps, and some species of vipers are ovoviviparous. This method of procreation is very convenient for snakes, since the female can hunt and defend herself at this time. Reptiles that lay eggs in a nest are deprived of this opportunity. For example, the king cobra is forced to tirelessly stay near the eggs until the offspring are born.
The development of ovoviviparity and viviparity began in northern latitudes, since the snake is a cold-blooded animal and does not have the ability to warm the eggs with the heat of its body. When babies develop in the womb, they automatically have the mother’s body temperature, which makes it possible to develop normally even in unfavorable weather conditions.
Viviparous snakes
The evolutionary level of certain reptiles has reached the point that some of them are viviparous, that is, they do not form eggs. With this type of reproduction, a placenta is formed in the snake, through which nutrients are supplied to the cubs. Otherwise, the process is no different from the birth of young in mammals.
Thanks to many years of observations by scientists of reptiles, we now know how a snake gives birth? Vipers, snakes and some species of sea snakes hatch their offspring without laying eggs.
Breeding frequency
The snake reproduces annually, but the number of copulations directly depends on the climate of the cold-blooded habitat. On average, the number of copulations, and therefore births, is no more than twice a year. The female is capable of giving birth to from one to 100 viable young. After birth they are completely independent.
The gestation period in females lasts from two to five months, depending on the type of reptile. However, this is quite difficult to determine, since the snake is able to retain live sperm inside itself for several years after copulation.
Traditional egg laying
Not long ago, scientists estimated that only about 70% of snakes lay eggs. All other species are viviparous or ovoviviparous. Egg laying occurs after copulation, which occurs in the same way in all reptiles. After fertilization, eggs are formed in the female’s body, and after a while she lays them in the nest. Until the offspring appear, the snake sits motionless near them, protecting the cubs from potential enemies. In this state, the female is hungry and very aggressive. Any encounter with a snake hatching babies can end in disaster.
Before giving birth, snakes carefully select a place to form a nest. Piles of rotting organic debris are ideal for these purposes, as they can protect future hatchlings from the elements. The incubation period for eggs varies from one to several months, depending on the variety of cold-blooded fish.
Lifespan of a snake
After the snake has given birth to cubs, they begin to actively develop and reach sexual maturity. Depending on the type of cold-blooded animal, this period occurs in the second, third or fourth year of life. By this moment, the growth of the reptile also reaches its maximum.
The lifespan of creeping creatures varies from 20 to 30 years, but it is quite rare to find long-livers among them. The majority do not live to old age due to premature death from attacks by birds of prey and unfavorable environmental conditions.
How snakes are born directly depends on the type of reptile. All types of reproduction described above take place.
We were told fairy tales that lizards or dragons are mythical creatures. However, the chronicles say that these were real animals that were found in medieval Rus'.
For example, in 1092, the chronicler wrote: “The clouds became dark, and a great serpent stretched out from behind them, its head on fire, and three heads, and smoke came from it, and a noise began like thunder.”
Many, of course, know that during pagan times our ancestors worshiped Perun, Svyatovit, Dazhdbog and other idols. But few people know about the worship of living “gods”.
Dragon
Gorynych's multi-headedness is his indispensable feature. Most often he appears three-headed. Other traits are mentioned less frequently or not at all. In most cases, the Snake has the ability to fly, but, as a rule, nothing is said about its wings. Thus, in the entire Afanasyev collection of Russian folk tales, “fiery wings” are reported only once (the fairy tale “Frolka-seat”). Gorynych’s body is not described in fairy tales, however, in popular prints depicting the Serpent, the favorite details are a long tail with an arrow and clawed paws. Another important feature is its fiery nature, but how exactly the fire erupts is not described in fairy tales. Gorynych carries fire within himself and spews it out in case of attack. In addition to the fire element, it is also associated with the water element, and these two elements are not mutually exclusive. In some fairy tales, he lives in the water, sleeping on a stone in the sea. At the same time, the Serpent Gorynych lives in the mountains (it is also possible that the patronymic came from the Slavic name Gorynya). However, such a location does not prevent him from being a sea monster. In some epics and fairy tales, he lives in the mountains, but when the hero approaches him, he comes out of the water.
The appearance of the 3rd Mey Gorynych is accompanied by a menacing noise, like “rain is falling” and “thunder is thundering.”
As soon as he approaches, darkness immediately sets in, the wind rises, and Mother Earth groans in pain; Like the classic dragon, Serpent Gorynych is a guardian. He guards the borders of the witchcraft “thirtieth kingdom behind the distant mountains.” You can get to the said thirtieth kingdom through the Kalinov Bridge, spanned over a wide, sometimes fiery river. But it is precisely this bridge that guards the Serpent Gorynych, he will not let anyone through - neither a bird nor beast, neither foot nor horse, burns or devours everyone.
In other versions, the Serpent - again similar to the classical dragon - guards not the border, but the very core of this magical country, “keeps watch” despite the fact that in the “thirtieth kingdom” the most valuable thing is treasures, golden apples, living water, and and a beautiful princess, local or kidnapped. The hero - Ivan Tsarevich or Ivan the Fool - must defeat Gorynych in battle, cut off all three of his heads, and burn his body. And quickly retreat, because the Snake usually has very vengeful relatives.
In the epics of the 11th century it is said that the Serpent Gorynych kidnaps beautiful girls (among whom there are often princesses) in order to intimidate the people, or simply to feast on them. In the Russian epic “About Dobrynya Nikitich and the Serpent Gorynych,” the Serpent Gorynych kidnapped Zabava Putyatishna, the niece of the Kyiv prince, and Dobrynya Nikitich freed her. It is curious that before the fight, the hero destroys Gorynych’s cubs, who look more like vipers than a formidable father and, for some reason, find themselves in an open field without any protection. Among the southern Slavs, the Serpent was considered the cause of drought, and was expelled to cause rain.
Miracle Yudo
Some researchers believe that this is another name for the Serpent Gorynych. Indeed, in appearance they are very similar. In general, the word “miracle” in the old days meant a giant.
Perhaps it comes from pre-Slavic mythology (according to a number of authors, it is a kind of nomadic plot from earlier, pre-Slavic beliefs). Initially, it did not have a clearly expressed negative role in the narratives. The character's gender also changed over time: from female to male, and to neuter, respectively. To date, there has been no consensus on the origin of the character in the works of ethnographers and cultural scientists. The nature of the character in the narratives that have survived to this day often resembles the sea monsters of ancient mythology.
The number of heads is usually a multiple of three, most often there are 3, 6, 9 and 12, but there are also 5 and 7. (IMHO this is too much, after all, heads stuck to the body like honey fungus stumps greatly worsen aerodynamics, and necks can easily get tangled But let’s leave this to the conscience of the epic writers.)
He possesses a fiery finger that allows him to regenerate severed heads. Miracle Yudo lives in stone chambers, where he has witch wives and a snake mother.
Miracle Yudo owns two magical springs: if you drink from one, you will become a mighty hero, and from the other, golden hair.
Fire Snake
In different regions of Ancient Rus' they called it differently: Lyubak, Volokita, Lyubostai, Letun, Letavets, Nosak.
In 1092, the chronicler wrote: “The clouds became dark, and a great serpent stretched out from behind them, its head on fire, and three heads, and smoke came from it, and a noise began like thunder.”
The snake received its nickname from its multi-meter fiery tail, which wriggles during flight (that’s where the nickname “snake” came from), and this “reptile” did not possess fire breathing, since it was literally a flying ball of fire, very similar to ball lightning.
The fiery serpent is the embodiment of serpentine cunning and strength, which flies over villages and penetrates the huts of lonely girls and women. If he falls in love with a girl, then the sweetheart is incurable forever.
This winged South Slavic dragon lives on rocks, sometimes in caves, and sometimes right on a cloud. While flying, it breathes fire. The fireman's body is covered with shiny, colorful scales. The fire is reflected in it, and the flight of the dragon looks like the flash of lightning. It falls to the ground with noise and thunder, scattering sparks.
There is no doubt that the popular consciousness identified a thunderstorm with the image of the fireman.
Tradition attributes to the dragon heroic strength, knowledge of healing and love spells, possession of untold wealth and the ability to seduce female persons. I just want to warn: “Girls! Fear the love of a fireman: it brings grief, illness and death.”
How a fireman flew into the city of Lukorye, saw a girl and seduced her.
But the fireman himself is subject to enchantment - you just need to find out the secret of the lapel potion and give it to the dragon. This way you can get rid of his harmful love.
Snake Snake
A monster that combines the features of a reptile, bird, animal, and human.
Stories about Poloz, the snake king, whose trace indicates the location of treasures, were popular among treasure hunters and miners.
“When a snake crawls so strong that the grass burns from it.”
Character from East Slavic mythology.
Zmiulan is the god of springs, wells, snakes and clouds. The connection with the water elements indicates his Navya nature (Nav in East Slavic mythology is the spirit of death, as well as the dead man).
In the beliefs of the southern Slavs, Zmiulan is a serpentine demon who lives in the hollow of an ancient oak tree.
He is the king of snakes and has wings.
Serpent of the Saratov province
Dark-haired, a bucket thick, two fathoms (4.26 m) long, with a human head. Speaks human language, but ambiguously. In popular prints, the snake has clawed legs and an endless train.
Cockatrice or Snake-cock
The cockatrice looks like a rooster with a snake's tail.
It does not have all the destructive power of the Basilisk, but it has one thing in common with it - if a person looks into the eyes of the Cockatrice, he will turn into stone. Inherits much more characteristics of a rooster than a snake (like the lizard-like Basilisk).
Serpent Veles (Tsmok)
God of agriculture and cattle breeding. One of the most ancient East Slavic gods, the clouding god, who covers the sky with rain clouds, drives cloudy herds to heavenly pastures. As the “cattle god” Volos was in charge of the heavenly flocks, was their ruler and shepherd, but then he was assigned the protection and protection of ordinary earthly flocks. Along with its shepherd character, Volos is given the significance of a god who helps the work of the farmer.
Since ancient times, cattle have been considered the main wealth of a tribe or family. Therefore, the god Veles was also the god of wealth.
According to legend, the Serpent God combines hairiness and scales in his appearance, flies with the help of membranous wings, and can breathe out fire, although he is very afraid of fire itself (especially lightning). The Serpent - Veles is a big lover of milk, hence his second name - Tsmog, Tsmok or Smog (Hello Tolkien), which in Old Slavonic means Sucker.
The asp is a monstrous winged serpent that has a bird’s nose and two trunks, its wings are colorful and glow and shimmer like semi-precious stones. According to some legends, however, the monster is impenetrably black. Hence the expression “slate black”.
Wherever Aspid gets into the habit of flying, he will devastate those places. He lives in the stone mountains, and according to other legends - in the gloomy, harsh, forested north, and never sits on the ground: only on a stone. It cannot be killed with an arrow, it can only be burned...
You can speak and destroy the serpent - the destroyer with a “trumpet voice”, from which the mountains shake. Then the sorcerer or healer grabbed the stunned asp with red-hot pincers and held it “until the snake died.”
Tugarin Zmey
All his names usually include the motif of “serpentineness” - Serpent Tugarin, Serpent Tugaretin, Tugarin Zmeevich, Serpent Tugarishche.
In Russian epics and fairy tales there is a mythologized image of an evil, harmful creature of a serpentine nature.
The main text in which Tugarin speaks is the epic about the fight between Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin in its various versions. When Tugarin leaves for a duel, his horse neighs like an animal, Tugarin whistles like a snake. Fiery snakes are entwined around Tugarin. He threatens Alyosha Popovich to choke him with smoke, shower him with sparks, scorch him with fire-flames, and shoot him with firebrands.
Tugarin is also associated with the element of water, and the fight with Alyosha Popovich usually takes place near the Safat River. But at the same time, Tugarin is also a flying kite. He flies across the sky on his paper wings, which fail him when they find themselves wet in the rain (the epic writers are at odds with logic).
Sem was known throughout the Slavic world. Despite the spread of Christianity, its images are found on tombstones even in the 15th century. Depicted as a two-legged snake or two-legged lizard.
He is the patron of the house and its inhabitants. Each house had its own Sem, which was burned as a gift in the oven, so that no one would run away from the house, so that everyone would behave soberly and respectfully.
Sem guarded the house and the people living in his house.
Snake Lizard (Yusha, Rygl, Volkhovets)
In some regions of Rus', the Lizard was the deity of rivers and fishing. In others, it was an underground Serpent, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the earth. This snake looked like a giant crocodile.
Almost all Slavic tribes who worshiped the Lizard considered him to be the absorber of the sun, every evening descending beyond the boundaries of the world and floating in an underground river to the east. This river flows inside the two-headed Lizard, swallowing the sun with its western mouth and spewing out of the eastern.
A harp was dedicated to the lizard, which he loved to listen to play and generously rewarded for good playing. In the legend about Sadko the Lizard, for good playing on the harp, Maestro FISH was given a GOLDEN FEATHER, that is, Goldfish. The Lizard's sanctuary was located in swamps, the banks of lakes and rivers. The coastal sanctuaries of the Lizard had a perfectly round shape. As victims, the Lizard was thrown into the swamp with black chickens, as well as young girls, which was reflected in many beliefs.
Human sacrifices were also made to him during the spring ice drift, when believers in ecstasy threw themselves into the river and drowned themselves, thereby showing honor to this deity.
The custom of sacrificing a person to the underwater god existed in the north in a transformed form until the beginning of the 20th century. The old people made a stuffed animal and sent it into the lake in a leaky boat, where it sank. Another sacrifice made to the Lizard was a horse, which was first fed by the entire village and then drowned.
Black Snake
Chernobog, Koschey the Immortal - the embodiment of all dark forces, was born from the world Duck at the beginning of creation. Overthrown into the underground kingdom of pekel. God of cold, destruction, death, evil; God of madness and the embodiment of everything bad and black.
Chernobog is sometimes depicted in the form of a giant thousand-headed “Fierce Snake, Black Snake, many-headed”; “This Snake has a thousand heads, that Snake has a thousand tails,” then in the form of a man or a demon with human features, painted black with silvered mustaches.
The descriptions are too vague and extremely mythologized.
Sacrifices are made to him before the start of important tasks, for example, before going on a military campaign. The sacrifices are often bloody and human, they kill prisoners, slaves and horses.
Nevertheless, Chernobog is characterized by a contradictory duality.
On the one hand, this is a terrible deity, the beginning of all misadventures and disastrous events. In addition to horses, not only prisoners were sacrificed to this terrible spirit, but also people specially given to him for this purpose. And how all the national disasters were attributed to him; then in such cases they prayed and sacrificed to him to ward off evil.
On the other hand, he is a strong god, the god of bodily strength, courage, the god of war, courage and military valor, the god of victorious glory.
In the mythology of the southern Slavs, this was the name of a monstrous tailed snake with horse eyes and wings under the knees. Usually he has three heads and nine tongues, - six wings, twelve tails, with horse eyes.
The challahs are so large in size that their heads are in the clouds, and their tails stretch along the ground. Lord of black clouds, hurricanes, hail, tornadoes, fogs, from which cornfields and gardens suffer. The Khals are warlike, they fight each other to the death for a magic staff - and then lightning flashes, thunder roars, snow and hail fall. Having united, the hungry challahs even attack the Sun and the Moon, obscure them with their wings (this is how eclipses occur), try to devour the luminaries, then they acquire a blood-red color. Before major human holidays, challahs dance in circles, raising whirlwinds. The trouble is for anyone who is inadvertently captured by such a whirlwind - the unfortunate person may go crazy.
It happens that halam turn into invisible people and animals, but even such werewolves can be seen by a person - if he has six fingers. Those creatures that are born from the marriage of the Fire Serpent with a woman protect people from challah. These little ones are half people, half snakes with tiny wings. As soon as such a creature is born, his mother must weave fabric for a shirt in one night, cut and sew it, otherwise the child will not grow up to be a protective snake, and there will be no one to protect the village from challah. When a storm comes, the little man with wings immediately falls asleep and his soul - Zdu-khach - flies off to fight with the challah. It must not be awakened or even touched, for the soul, returning, must find the body in its previous position in order to enter it. Otherwise, the magical creature will die and the challah will defeat people.
Yilbegan
In some myths of the Turkic peoples of Siberia, he is a winged dragon, and in some, a multi-headed cannibal monster who rides a bull with ninety-nine horns.
Epilogue, or he, she and the Serpent
The image of the ancient Russian dragon is quite remarkable. On the one hand, the dragon in Rus' was perceived as personified evil: it steals women (and, by the way, young men - especially of a noble family), ruins volosts and generally behaves antisocially. It is also associated with the element of fire: “Gorynych” etymologically goes back to the word “burn”, and secondarily to the word “mountain”, within which it lives. The dragon is many-headed, noisy and dangerous. Thus, there seems to be a Western type of voracious winged reptile.
On the other hand, the dragon in some Russian epics appears as a broad-minded, intelligent creature (and indeed, having three heads, it is indecent to be a simpleton), knowing the law and not alien to the subtleties of legal chicanery. In one of the epics, the Serpent offers Dobrynya, instead of bloodshed, to draw up a non-aggression pact and, on the basis of this document, part with the world. But as soon as Dobrynya, confident that he has successfully and forever resolved all the issues, loses his vigilance, the Serpent completely forgets about the agreement and immediately breaks it. And, completely in line with the Eastern tradition, the dragon from Russian fairy tales, which appears in them under many creative pseudonyms - the Fire Serpent, the Serpent Tugarin, Zmiulan - cannot imagine life without the element of water: rivers, lakes, swamps, lowlands and, of course, , rain and thunderstorms. When he appears over Mother Russia, thunder rumbles and “rain will fall.” But to this day, when in the spring you have to wait especially long for precipitation, some Chinese peasants are sure that the reason for everything is the bad mood of the dragons, who are simply too lazy to crawl out of their underground holes, rise into the sky and make a good downpour. In a word, the Russian Serpent Gorynych is a Western dragon “with slanted and greedy eyes.” He has two paws in Europe and two paws in China, that is, he is a true Eurasian.
However, the Russian epic tradition would not be itself if it did not still outweigh some signs. The problem of the dragon as the embodiment of sexuality also appears in a particularly interesting light.
The pagan Russian dragon is, first and foremost, a dangerous rival for a man in the fight for a woman’s heart. In epics and fairy tales about him, the problem of heroic dragon fighting almost always comes down to the plot climax of the story with adultery. Of course, this “love” motive was also strong in the West, but the Western princess, so to speak, is not so susceptible to dragon seduction (or is she too cowardly?). The Western dragon usually seizes the princess by force, abducts her and carries her away, screaming in horror, on his back (not in his paws!) and hides her in a cave. But after this, for some reason he loses all interest in her and prefers to wait patiently until the next “knight without fear and reproach” finally gets around to freeing the captive.
I always wondered why the stupid princess was kidnapped then? And why shouldn’t the dragon eat or burn it, seeing the approach of the liberator, and thereby poison his triumph? In addition, it seems to me that 90% of the “Lancelots,” having made sure that there is no one else to save, would prefer not to get involved with the dragon, because there is no longer one for whose salvation the king would give away half his kingdom and a hundred chests of gold in addition. It seems that the lazy dragon kidnaps the princesses so that the food itself goes into his paws, eats more and more, imperceptibly gaining weight and loses his vigilance until he gets fat to the point that he becomes clumsy enough for the enemy to be able to defeat him.
At the same time, the Russian dragon often has enough of his personal charm for the princess to happily run away with him herself. And the names of many ancient Russian darakons speak for themselves: Lyubak, Volokita, Lyubostai.
The Russian dragon has more sex appeal than Robert Pattinson and the vampire Alucard combined. Perhaps that is why he rarely seeks to take a beauty to his territory, preferring a single life alone with his precious metals and banknotes, which he, like his Western brother, always has “countless” to the joys of cave passion.
Often, a Russian dragon only needs to seduce a beauty - thereby establishing his masculinity and strength. Kidnapping is often not part of his plans. The Russian dragon is, first of all, an insidious womanizer, a heartless heartthrob, a ladies' man in snake guise. There is a well-known fairy tale where the Serpent Gorynych, serving as a cook for Ivan, the merchant’s son, seduces his wife, Elena the Beautiful. The adulterers carefully cherish plans to eliminate the deceived spouse, but chance upsets the cards, and at the end of the fairy tale, like in Shakespeare, everyone dies - Ivan, the dragon, and Elena. In another tale, a lustful dragon manages to win the love of a beautiful princess. The only obstacle to the happiness of our loving couple is the girl’s brother, Ivan Tsarevich, who, unfortunately, firmly stands on the position of the most dense Victorian morality. The dragon teaches the princess how to drive her brother away from the world, but Ivan Tsarevich still prevails over cunning and, with a sword in his hands, explains to the adulterers that the social ban on interspecies sex is still in force, and no one has yet punished it canceled.
So, the Russian dragon is the personification of the elements of powerful sexual desires, many of which, obviously, pass through the department of “sado-maso”.
You are ruthless, strong, cruel, and I am a small, helpless, vulnerable princess!
You are courageous, seductive and skillful, and I am beautiful, passionate and dissatisfied with a boring, disgusting and morally-minded husband. As an option - bullied by hypocritical brothers.
You are incredibly cool, pathetic, amazingly brutal, and terribly fatal! And I... Well, you already understood everything. ^_^
The dragon is a creation of nature, which is pretty tired of the sanctimonious culture with its eternal “no”, this is masculinity in its primary, non-taboo guise. Therefore, in order to win his Fun Putyatishna, the Russian hero must fight the dragon, thus appropriating all his qualities - in particular, indomitability, fatal charm, ingenuity and, finally, treasures. So that later, smugly posing for eloquent epic writers and shamelessly lying about his exploits, as if by chance, he would say to his Fun: “Now do you see that I am no less cool than him?”
The view of the dragon as a rival-seducer, characteristic of the Slavic pagan tradition, was not inherited by Christian Russian culture. As Rus' became Christianized, a completely different image of the dragon, already known to us from Greek mythology, the Revelation of John the Theologian and the Western medieval tradition, gained popularity - the image of the dragon-Satanail, the “god-destroying creature.”
The most popular plot of dragon fighting is the feat of St. George (also Yegory the Brave). In the fourteenth century, the image of Duel Number One appears on the emblem, and later - in the center of the coat of arms of the city of Moscow and becomes part of the state emblem of the Russian Empire, symbolizing the historical drama of the God-bearing people, in defiance of all adversities opposing the World Evil.
Nevertheless, dragons remained popular for a long time as a symbol of courage and spiritual strength, as evidenced by these jewelry pieces.
Later, the Christian attitude towards dragons nevertheless prevailed, but it is not for nothing that dragons have magical powers. Having suffered a seemingly crushing defeat, forgotten and relegated to the level of children's horror stories, they were able to return from oblivion and again spread their wings over the world, sharing their strength and wisdom with everyone who knows how to hear and listen.
American scientists have established that millions of years ago a giant boa constrictor lived on Earth. This discovery allows us not only to learn more about the past, but perhaps also to look into the future.
Titanoboa model
About 58 million years ago, a snake of incredible size crawled out of the swampy South American jungle. This creature could terrify anyone.
The reptile weighed more than a ton and was 14 meters long. She could swallow a whole crocodile and not choke.
But until a few years ago, scientists had no idea about the existence of this fossil animal.
"Even in our wildest dreams, we could not imagine that we would find a 14-meter boa constrictor. The largest of the modern snakes is half that size," says Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and one of the authors of the discovery.
The snake, given the Latin name Titanoboa cerrejonensis (the colossal boa of Cerrejon), is said to be a distant relative of the anaconda and the modern boa constrictor. It was not poisonous, but killed its victims with enormous compressive force: more than 180 kg per 6.4 square meters.
Fossils of a giant snake were found during excavations in an open-pit coal mine in the town of Querrejon in Colombia. In 2002, scientists discovered fossils of a Paleocene-era tropical jungle at the site—perhaps even the very first such forest on the planet.
In addition to fossilized plants, many reptiles were found, the size of which amazed the imagination.
“We have discovered a lost world of giant reptiles: turtles the size of kitchen tables and the largest fossil crocodiles in the history of exploration,” says Jonathan Bloch, an expert in vertebrate evolution at the University of Florida.
Among the finds was a giant snake.
"After the extinction of the dinosaurs, this animal, Titanoboa, was the largest predator on Earth, and this continued for about 10 million years," explains Bloch. "It was a very large animal - no matter how you look at it."
In search of fossil skulls
However, to get a complete picture of what the prehistoric snake looked like, what it ate, and how it relates to the modern animal world, scientists needed to study the remains of the reptile's skull.
"After the dinosaurs went extinct 60 million years ago, the equator was much hotter than it is today. We think that's why reptiles grew to very large sizes" (Jonathan Bloch.)
Last year, a special research group was sent to Colombia to search for the Titanoboa skull, which, however, had little hope of success. The fact is that the bones of a snake skull are very fragile, and very few fossil skulls have survived to this day.
"Unlike our skulls, the bones in a snake's skull are not held together. They are held together by tissue," says Jason Head, a serpentologist at the University of Nebraska.
“When an animal dies, the connective tissues decompose and the individual bones usually disperse,” the scientist continues. “They are also very thin and fragile and often break down. But because Titanoboa was so large and had very large bones, this is one of the few snakes that we know from fossils."
To the amazement of the team, they were able to discover the remains of three skulls, with which they were able to completely reconstruct the skull of a giant reptile for the first time.
Thus, it was possible to better learn about how Titanoboa lived and looked like. A life-size replica of the snake is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the United States. In 2013, the exhibit will go on tour across America.
The discovery of a new species of huge fossil snake helps scientists not only learn about the ancient animal world, but also gain new information about the history of the earth's climate. This means that fossils can tell us about the effects of current global warming.
Snakes are unable to regulate their temperature and depend on external heat to survive.
"Tropical plants and ecosystems can cope with high temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide, another major problem associated with the current trend of global warming" (Carlos Jaramillo).
"We think Titanoboa got so big because after the dinosaurs went extinct 60 million years ago, it was much hotter at the equator than it is today. We think that's why reptiles grew to very large sizes."
Bloch notes that the ability of animals to survive in high temperatures may become relevant again if climate scientists' predictions regarding global warming come true.
The ability to thrive in warm climates could play an important role if global temperatures rise as climate scientists predict, Bloch added.
"This is evidence that ecosystems can develop at the temperatures expected for the next hundred or two hundred years," he said.
Return of Titanoboa?
However, the climate changes that led to the emergence of Titanoboa took place over millions of years. Scientists are less certain about the effects of sudden temperature changes.
"Biology is surprisingly adaptable. Changes in climate and living conditions on continents are the stimulus for evolution. But what happens very quickly can lead to changes that can hardly be assessed positively," says Bloch.
During the period of existence of the Querrejon rainforests, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 50% higher than today.
"The Caerrejon fossils taught us an important lesson: we learned that tropical plants and ecosystems can cope with high temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide, another major problem associated with the current trend of global warming," says Carlos Jaramillo.
“Plants and animals in the tropics may already have the genetic ability to cope with global warming,” the researcher believes.
Does this mean the giant snake Titanoboa could be back?
"As temperatures rise, there's a chance they'll come back," Jaramillo says. – It takes geological time of the order of a million years for a new species of animal to appear. But they can come back!"
Based on materials from bbc.co.ukAncient reptiles are the object of research by modern paleontologists. Gigantophis is one of the most striking representatives of snakes, and the name was not given to it by chance. It turns out that she was truly gigantic in size.
Gigantophis is a snake that existed on the planet about 40 million years ago. Like many representatives of the ancient world, it became extinct. The cause of the death of reptiles, as modern scientists suggest, was global climate change.
Gigantophys lived in the Northern Sahara. Currently, states such as Egypt and Libya are located there. It turns out that these snakes were very large in size and some scientists even call them giant. Gigantophis is thought to have been about 10% longer than the largest modern snakes.
The ancient reptiles reached a height of up to 50 centimeters and a length of up to 10.7 meters. Moreover, they weighed about 700 kilograms. In size, Gigantophys can only be compared with the South American snake Titanoboa.
Ancient reptiles moved on the ground by contracting their muscles and bending their long bodies. Gigantophys lived on the coasts of lakes and swamps. These representatives of the animal world had a relatively small head and an impressive body, covered with shiny scales. Like many modern snakes, Gigantophis used strangulation techniques to obtain food. They ate large mammals. In the illustrations of one modern artist, you can see how the ancient reptile hunts its prey, and then overtakes it and wraps its entire long body around it, preparing to devour its prey. The reptiles also ate small animals and birds.
Gigantophis was first described by British scientist Charles Andrews in 1901. But half a century later, French paleontologists managed to learn even more about these snakes based on the excavations they carried out and the remains extracted from the bowels of the earth.
The skeleton of Gigantophis was quite well developed. This is evidenced by fragments of vertebrae found by paleontologists. Modern scientists have not been able to assemble the entire model of the giant reptile, but individual parts are presented in some foreign museums.
Experts were able to recreate a computer model of the remains and even make several artificial models against the backdrop of human and some mammal skeletons, so that they could visualize how large the reptile was and what the structural features of its gigantic body were.
Gigantophys is of interest to many modern people. We are not even talking about those who know a lot about representatives of the ancient animal world. Many scientific and even popular science fiction films have been made about giant reptiles. It was after their release on screens that Gigantophys became known to a wide range of viewers. More accurate information about the life of ancient snakes can be found on the pages of the scientific works of great scientists. In this case, everyone who is interested has the opportunity to learn a lot of new things, and this valuable information is truthful. Unfortunately, the directors of some famous films offer the viewer their own vision of how ancient animals lived. Often this does not coincide with reality and people have an inaccurate idea of what happened a very long time ago on planet Earth.
More recently, the remains of gigantophis were found in Pakistan. However, some scientists doubt their belonging to ancient reptiles. They believe that final conclusions can only be drawn after a series of complex examinations.
Gigantophis is an ancient snake of truly gigantic size. Some individuals had a length of up to 10.7 meters. Until recently, these representatives of the animal world were considered the largest reptiles, but then they lost first place to the South American Titanoboa.