The biggest snake - anaconda - thanks to Hollywood thrillers, has long become a byword. Say, this insatiable monster feeds on people, moves perfectly on land, and breaks all the bones of its victim, or even swallows it alive whole. Let's try to separate the truth from the myths and tell what this reptile of the boa subfamily with the official name eunectes murinus is.
Several types of anacondas fought for the title of the longest and most powerful snake, as well as the Asian reticulated python, whose dimensions sometimes reach 9 meters. The largest fossil reptile in the history of the Earth was titanoboa cerrejonensis, the remains of which were found among the coal seams in a Columbia mine. She lived 60 million years ago, reached 15 meters in length and weighed about a ton. It is assumed that modern anacondas originated from it. There are several species of them, and they all live in the impenetrable jungles of Latin America. The most common is eunectes murinus, green ora giant anaconda snake, the photo of which became the basis for creating a cinematic image of a terrible cannibal. It is common not only in the equatorial forests of Latin America, but also on the island of Trinidad and even in Malaysia. There are also yellow (eunectes notaeus) and black (eunectes deschauenseei) anacondas. But they are significantly inferior in size to their giant sister.
Let's talk about this peculiar record holder - the green anaconda, which is also called the water python, the mother of rivers, the killer bull. Usually it reaches 5-6 meters, which in itself is very impressive. Many hunters and Indians claim that they saw specimens and 15 meters in length, however, only the corpse of a reptile, which reached 11.43 meters, is accurately measured. And among the living inhabitants, the anaconda snake, which lives in captivity (at the New York Zoological Society), is considered the longest - its length is 9 meters. But, perhaps, a he althy and balanced diet of the animal played a big role in achieving these parameters.
We figured out the sizes. And what are the habits? Is it true that the anaconda snake is so greedy for human flesh that it crawls into villages and sows death and destruction there? In fact, the habitat of the reptile is water and again water. On land, where the snake crawls out only occasionally to bask in the sun, it is terribly clumsy. Probably due to her weight of 200 kilograms. If the reservoir dries up, and there is no other nearby, the snake simply burrows into the silt and hibernates in anticipation of the rainy season. These giant pythons even mate in the water.
The anaconda snake is waiting in ambush for its prey. Everything in her camouflage color is designed to mislead the animal descending to the watering hole, to make it ignore "just withered leaves floating on the smooth surface of stagnant water." But as soon as an unlucky tapir or deer comes closer to the water's edge, a snake rushes at him with a lightning-fast throw. The anaconda has teeth, but they are not poisonous, so they are needed only to keep the victim in the first seconds. Next comes the musculature of a giant body: the embrace of a python is truly deadly. But anacondas do not flatten their food, but simply suffocate (which is also helped by the water into which the snake drags its prey). Reptiles swallow food really whole, stretching the throat.
Is the anaconda snake so scary? The Indians of Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana and Venezuela, who have long eaten them, to this day consider the meat of this reptile a delicacy. The process of hunting the anaconda is impressive, but completely without any risk. After all, unlike defenseless tapirs and monkeys, man is armed and very dangerous.
