Sixty million years ago in the steamy prehistoric forests of what is now Colombia, there slithered a 50-foot, 2,500-pound reptile. Its bones were found in an open coal pit in 2006. Carlos Jaramillo thought at first he and his team had found fossils from an ancient crocodile. But no. It was a snake. Jaramillo and his co-researchers published their findings in the journal Nature in February 2009 and named the reptile Titanoboa. The paleontologist earned a master’s degree in geology and geophysics from S&T in 1995.