Climate change is super-sizing reptiles, shrinking mammals

A Florida paleontologist says climate change may turn back the species clock to a day when mammals were tiny and reptiles huge. From NBC News:

"You see the size of these animals dancing with the climate," said Jonathan Bloch, a paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Bloch delved into the connection between body size and global temperatures, particularly during a hot time known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, on Monday during the ScienceWriters2013 conference here in Gainesville. Like so many facets of global change, the lessons from the distant past don't make the far future look all that sunny. Super-snakes, anyone?

Read the full story here. Photo: Artist’s conception of the largest snake the world has ever known from Jason Bourque / University of Florida.