by Green anacondas is also known as the Giant Snake, South American Water Python, South American Green Python, Anaconda or Sucuri. Native to the Amazon rainforest of South America, the green anaconda is actually the world’s largest and longest-living snake. This species is especially famous for being regularly brought to the screen by filmmakers.
A member of the boa family, South America’s green anaconda is, pound for pound, the largest snake in the world. Its cousin, the reticulated python, can reach slightly greater lengths, but the enormous girth of the anaconda makes it almost twice as heavy. Green anacondas can grow to more than 29 feet, weigh more than 550 pounds, and measure more than 12 inches in diameter. Females are significantly larger than males. Other anaconda species, all from South America and all smaller than the green anaconda, are the yellow, dark-spotted, and Bolivian varieties.
There is a theory that explains why some individual anacondas’ size tends to be far-fetched – and it’s something that happens when people meet up with other large animals that are actually not so gigantic as they appear, such as bears, crocodiles, giraffes, sharks, elephants, squids, whales, etc…: since primates have spent tens of millions of years coexisting with large snakes, humans evolved to possess hyperactive snake-detecting circuits in the brain; as a result, a lot of people perceive certain serpents (like anacondas) as being much bigger than they actually are.
Numerous historical accounts of green anacondas are reported, often of improbable sizes. Several zoologists (notably Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace, among others) note rumors of snakes beyond 9 or 12 m (30 or 40 ft) long, but in each case, their direct observations were limited to snakes around 6 m (20 ft) in length. Numerous estimates and second-hand accounts abound, but are generally considered unreliable.
Anacondas live in swamps, marshes, and slow-moving streams, mainly in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon and Orinoco basins. They are cumbersome on land, but stealthy and sleek in the water. Their eyes and nasal openings are on top of their heads, allowing them to lay in wait for ᴘʀᴇʏ while remaining nearly completely submerged.
They reach their monumental size on a diet of wild pigs, deer, birds, turtles, capybara, caimans, and even jaguars. Anacondas are nonvenomous constrictors, coiling their muscular bodies around ᴄᴀᴘᴛᴜʀᴇᴅ ᴘʀᴇʏ and sǫᴜᴇᴇᴢɪɴɢ until the animal ᴀsᴘʜʏxɪᴀᴛᴇs. Jaws attached by stretchy ligaments allow them to sᴡᴀʟʟᴏᴡ their ᴘʀᴇʏ whole, no matter the size, and they can go weeks or months without food after a big meal.
