Anaconda snake | Facts & Information

Colors: olive-green speckled with black dots

Anaconda is a constrictor snake. It is the largest snake in the world and can swallow food nearly triple the diameter of its body. Anaconda is part of the order Eunectes. The order Eunectes is divided into two suborders: eunectes murinus and Eunectes notaeus. The maximum age it can reach is 35 years. Anaconda is found in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins, in quiet waters and swamps.

The stories of the first explorers of the Amazon told of a giant snake that could easily hunt an adult human. For years, scientists have been skeptical of what the world's largest snake is capable of. The latest studies of herpetologists, as well as the pertinent accounts of Indigenous people, shed new light on a reptile so feared that it has come to be revered as a true water deity. 

Anaconda is actually the name for four species of the Boid family, all of which are found exclusively in South America. Only one of these species, the green Anaconda ( eunectes murinus), became famous in the human world with its discovery and description before the scientific world as early as 1758 by the renowned Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Because it is the largest representative of the boa snake family, Venezuelan and Brazilian farmers call it the green boa, because of its color, or water boa, in direct reference to the aquatic environment in which this colossus with scales lives. Indians of the South American tribes call it Sucurinju, Yakumama or Jiboia. Anaconda lives exclusively in South America, in Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Guyana, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, preferring the Amazon basin and the Orinoco River. An anaconda is a massive snake in its own right, an adult female has a body as thick as a human. The Supreme snake (as it is called, among others) of Amazonia was revered by many tribes of Indians because of its strength and attraction. It was among these tribes that the myth of the giant anaconda was born that can reach incredible sizes.

FEEDING ANACONDA

Very large adult snakes even hunt large animals such as deer, capybara (the largest rodent in the world), wild boar, etc.in fact, they consume any kind of prey they can catch: fish, waterfowl, turtles, amphibians, reptiles. Adult anacodes can catch peccaries, domestic pigs, chickens, geese, dogs, sheep, goats, cervids, tapirs, capybara, caimans. Some rare cases have been documented in which they even managed to kill jaguars.

ANACONDA APPEARANCE   

It has olive - green color stained with black dots. Along the head anaconda snakes have a distinct orange stripe. On the abdomen the drawing of the scales is made up of a combination of irregular spots and stripes of black color on a greenish-yellow background. The head is narrow compared to the body, the eyes are placed high with the skull to allow it to observe everything on the surface of the water.

ANACONDA BEHAVIOR 

The Anaconda lurks its prey by sitting coiled in the swamps and puddles that sprinkle the endless Amazonian selva, usually avoiding the fast streams of water. From its hiding place the anaconda lies motionless for hours until the moment when the prey reaches the right of its attack range. This is lightning fast, the huge spring in the muscles suddenly unwinds at a speed too great for the human eye. The prey is grabbed with a multitude of teeth after which, if the victim is small, it is to be dragged into the water and drowned.

If it has caught a large prey, the body of the Anaconda wraps around the victim, after which the terrible clenching of the force follows. Ring by Ring, millimeter by millimeter, the snake begins to tighten its muscles until the prey is suffocated and finally dies.

In very rare cases, when the anaconda feels that it is in great danger, it regurgitates its prey (which can be twice its size) to escape the predators around it.

ANACONDA BREEDING 

Mating of anacondas is an interesting phenomenon, unique in the world of reptiles. During the mating season the female eliminates a specific odor that attracts like a magnet all the males from the territory crossed by her. Males gather in a real "mating ball" in which about 12-15 males curl around a female. Copulation takes place in water, and gestation lasts about 6 months. Anacondas are ovoviviparous snakes, that is, the female produces eggs that hatch inside her body, after this appearance the chicks are born alive. Newborns measure 60 cm on average and do not need parental care. At the age of 4 years young anaconde reach sexual maturity.