Giant anaconda - predator in the wild

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

For writers and filmmakers, huge reptiles are the most beloved characters in stories and horror films. Information about these individuals is too exaggerated to be interesting to watch or read.

Many myths and legends, not supported by reliable facts, go around giant anacondas. For example, that snakes attack people, or that other predators cannot kill them. But that's not the case at all. There have been cases when reptiles themselves became victims of cougars, jaguars, otters and crocodiles. Huge boas can be seen in zoos. For them, special horizontal terrariums are built. They contain ponds and trees so that you can get out of the water. Temperature and humidity are maintained artificially.

First mentions

After the discovery of South America, Spanish explorers first encountered a huge reptile - it was a giant anaconda. You can see photos of the largest specimens in the article.

The Wildlife Fund was interested in this discovery and offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for the supply of a reptile with a length of five andup to nine meters. In Venezuela, about eight hundred snakes were found that exceeded the declared size, but in the end the prize was never claimed.

In the city of Antiocha, the Spaniards discovered a huge snake. She was a little over six meters long, with a scarlet head and terrible green eyes. People killed the specimen with a spear and saw a deer in its stomach.

Also in the forties in Colombia, a giant anaconda was found by an expedition. The size of the individual was more than eleven meters, and the weight was about two hundred kilograms.

Appearance

Anaconda is the largest reptile in the world. Its dimensions range from five to twelve meters, weight is about two hundred kilograms. There is evidence that you can meet a boa constrictor up to forty meters long.

The giant anaconda snake has a peculiar color, a green body with a gray tint and two rows of round or oblong spots, similar to a checkerboard row. And on the sides are yellow drawings circled in black circles. Such skin helps the reptile to remain unnoticed underwater.

There are four types of anacondas in the world - these are Benyan, Paraguayan, green and ordinary. These snakes live in tropical parts of Brazil, South America, Venezuela, Colombia and Paraguay near water bodies.

Calculating the lifespan of giant reptiles is very difficult and not even entirely realistic. Their life expectancy in zoos is just under thirty years, but standard snakes in a terrarium live up to six years.

Reptile life

Anaconda is most often found onswampy rivers and lakes of South America. In these reservoirs, the snake guards its prey; it will never move far from the victim. Reptiles are very good at swimming and diving, they can stay under water for a long time due to special valves that close their nostrils. When rivers dry up, anacondas drift downstream into other channels or burrow into the mud before the rainy season.

The diet of snakes consists of small and large animals, which lie in wait near water bodies, and also deftly catch birds, fish and turtles. Being in a motionless state, the snake waits for its prey, and when it is already very close, the giant anaconda pounces sharply, wrapping its prey in a spiral and squeezing it tightly to suffocation. Then it opens its mouth strongly and swallows the whole animal.

Procreation

Almost all the time reptiles live alone, and only during the mating season do they gather in small groups. During this season it starts to rain. Males on land find females by their scent. When mating, snakes curl up into a ball of several individuals and make a grinding sound.

Giant anaconda bears cubs for a little over six months. At this point, she almost doubled her weight. The number of children is approximately from thirty to forty serpents up to one meter long. Sometimes the anaconda can lay eggs.

Great reptile

Giant green anaconda lives in South America. This snake got its name due to its color and large size. Its length is from five to tenmeters. Females are thicker and larger than males, so it is easy to tell them apart. A feature of reptiles is that they have a very unpleasant and pungent odor.

The snake eats wild animals. The giant anaconda will not attack people, rather, on the contrary, having caught the smell of a person, it quickly leaves the place.

Reptiles live near water bodies, for them these are the most comfortable conditions. When the sun shines, they rest on the shore or perch on tree branches. During a drought, anacondas burrow to the bottom of the pond, and also during this period, females bear cubs that are born and immediately begin to swim and hunt.

Sukuriju

There is a snake in the Amazon called the giant man-eating anaconda. It moves freely on land and can stay under water for a long time. The Indians call this type of reptile Sukuriju. Their length reaches twenty to forty meters, and their weight is about half a ton. The individual is golden-green in color, has brown spots in the form of patterns on the body, the head is reddish. This type of snake was first discovered in the middle of the 16th century.

The anaconda feeds on a variety of animals that it can handle, mostly cattle. The smell emanating from reptiles first attracts the victim, and then paralyzes. And also the individual swallows a person whole. Several such cases have been recorded. Sukuriju attacks people by mistake, because the snake under water does not see the whole victim, but only part of the body, or ifit may seem to her that they want to take away her prey.

From the above, we can conclude that the giant anaconda is different from the usual artistic description, but you still need to be careful when meeting with a reptile.