Anaconda versus python in a fight is likely to win, unless, of course, it faces the world's longest snake, the reticulated python, in battle. But here, too, her chances of winning are much higher, since she, slightly inferior to him in length, is significantly superior in weight.

A large anaconda is able to cope with a young crocodile. Against an adult, massive, large specimen, of course, she will not survive, in a fight with him she will be in the role of prey. But it can handle a small crocodile without much difficulty, and therefore it is quite capable of feasting on it.

Anaconda is a vertebrate animal from the class of reptiles, belongs to the genus of snakes from the subfamily of boas and lives in the tropical latitudes of South America. This snake feels great in fresh water, and therefore prefers to spend as much time as possible in the aquatic environment, for which it received the name water boa. Since it belongs to the subfamily of boas, the snake is not poisonous: it strangles its prey.

At the moment, the following types of anacondas have been discovered:

• Giant - the largest snake in the world, more than five meters long, lives in tropical latitudes and settles in swamps and large rivers;
• Paraguayan - no more than three meters long, lives in closed low-flow reservoirs. In addition to Paraguay, lives in Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil;
• Deshauercea - lives in the northwestern part of Brazil;
• Eunectes beniensis is a snake about four meters long, representatives of this species are similar to the Paraguayan anaconda and it is likely that in the future it will become its subspecies. It was discovered in Bolivia in 2002 and is currently under study.

Description

Anaconda is considered one of the largest representatives of the genus of snakes in the world: the length of the longest measured anaconda is 5.2 meters, and the weight is 97.5 kg (females are larger than males). There is a lot of information about larger specimens, whose size exceeds ten meters, but these data are not confirmed by anything, and are very doubtful. It is worth noting that the anaconda against the reticulated python is inferior in length (according to the Guinness book, the maximum length of the python is 9.75 meters), but still wins in mass.

Anaconda has a greenish-grayish color with large rounded or oblong brown spots that alternate in a checkerboard pattern (this coloring hides the hunting snake very well). Speaking about the anaconda, it will be interesting that, like other snakes, she sheds her old skin, but does this without leaving the reservoir: she rubs against its bottom.

Although the sounds of anacondas are practically not heard, they have a very well-developed nervous system, so they feel various vibrations in the environment with their whole body.

But as for vision, the snake periodically goes blind: instead of eyelids, there are motionless transparent scales on its eyes, which, when the snake begins to molt, become cloudy, blocking the view. Speaking about the anaconda, it should be borne in mind that she, being a snake, does not blink, so there is an opinion that she hypnotizes her prey.

Lifestyle

One of the interesting facts about the anaconda is that it is almost always in the water, and tries to go to the coast as little as possible: it swims excellently and is able to stay under water for a long time, and in order not to suffocate, its nostrils block during the dive valves. She prefers to swim in reservoirs or with a very calm current, or without it at all.

A boa constrictor gets out on the shore mainly to bask in the sun, for this it even sometimes climbs trees. Speaking about the anaconda, it should be borne in mind that it moves, like all snakes: the main role in this process is played by tenacious scales located on the abdomen, as well as the muscles of the body.

Once on land, the snake does not move far from the water, and if the reservoir dries up, or moves to another, or goes down the river. If, during a drought, it is not possible to change the reservoir, the boa constrictor burrows into the silt located at the bottom of the reservoir, after which it falls into a stupor until the start of the rainy period.

Food

Like all boas, the anaconda is not poisonous: having attacked the victim, it embraces it, from which the animal rarely succeeds in escaping. Its grip is so strong that even one of the most formidable predators in the world, a crocodile, is able to become its victim (although an adult large-sized crocodile will get rid of the grip and, most likely, will eat it itself).

The largest snake in the world eats various reptiles, small mammals that come to drink. Usually these are rodents, turtles, waterfowl, lizards. Larger individuals can eat capybaras, peccaries, small crocodiles (up to two meters), there is even a case when a large anaconda managed to eat a 2.5-meter python. They may well eat representatives of their own species.

Having sensed the prey, the snake freezes in the water and becomes motionless. After the victim approaches, the boa constrictor pounces on it with lightning speed and strangles it, completely cutting off oxygen by immobilizing the chest, so the victim dies from suffocation.

After that, the snake eats it whole, greatly stretching its mouth and throat. Like all snakes, its mouth is very well stretched with the help of an elastic ligament connecting the right and left sides of the lower jaw, which are connected to the skull by bones, the ends of which provide them with rotational movement. Thanks to this, the largest snake in the world is able to swallow an animal that is much larger than it (for example, a young crocodile).

reproduction

Speaking about the anaconda, it should be borne in mind that they are solitary animals, but when the mating period begins, they gather in flocks (this happens during the beginning of the rainy season). At this time, several males are usually located near one female at once, and, like other snakes, when mating, they are woven into a ball of several individuals.

Anaconda is ovoviviparous: it bears eggs inside the body, while the cubs mainly receive food not from the body of the snake, but from the egg. Before being born, serpents leave the egg shell while still in the mother's body. The female bears cubs for about six to seven months and she loses weight almost twice during this time.

The female gives birth to 28 to 42 cubs with a length of 50 to 80 cm, sometimes their number can reach up to a hundred. Immediately after birth, molting begins, so the serpent does not eat anything at this time. When the molt ends, the baby is already able to swim, mine, and feed on its own. At this time, small anacondas are extremely vulnerable, and they are eaten by birds, crocodiles and other predators.

Anaconda Enemies

If we talk about the anaconda, it must be borne in mind that this boa constrictor is so strong that it has practically no rivals among snakes (an anaconda against a python can easily withstand a fight). Sometimes a jaguar or a large crocodile can attack her. A large individual is rarely attacked: the crocodile usually attacks and eats kites or weakened males after mating. Two cases were recorded when an adult male crocodile managed to cope with female anacondas (such situations are the exception rather than the rule).

Despite the fact that the boa constrictor eats many mammals, rumors about the anaconda as a snake that feeds on humans are greatly exaggerated. A boa constrictor of this species rarely attacks a person (despite the fact that the boa constrictor is longer, the person is vertical to the surface, and therefore she may consider him too large a prey for herself).

Recorded single cases of attacks on humans, caused by the fact that the snake sees only a part of the body that it is able to cope with, or believes that they want to take away food from it. And then, she will attack a person sluggishly, reluctantly, rather trying to intimidate in the hope that he will leave. The only case when it is known for sure that an anaconda managed to eat a person is the death of an Indian teenager.

Since the snake lives in hard-to-reach impassable places, if there were cases that caused death, there was usually no one to fix them.

It is man who is the most serious enemy for an adult anaconda: the Indians hunt her because of the skin that goes to textiles and haberdashery, as well as meat. Hunting for anacondas in the countries where they live is not prohibited, since it is believed that there are quite a lot of them, and they give numerous offspring. It is difficult to say exactly how many anacondas are in the world, since they prefer to live in difficult places where the human foot steps as little as possible.

100 Great Wildlife Records Nepomniachtchi Nikolay Nikolayevich

THE LARGEST SNAKE IN THE WORLD - ANACONDA

Anaconda (Eunectes murinus) - the world's largest snake - inhabits the entire tropical South America east of the Cordillera and the island of Trinidad. The average size of an adult anaconda is 5–6 m, but occasionally there are individuals up to 10 m long.

A unique, authentically measured specimen from Eastern Colombia reached 11 m 43 cm (however, this specimen could not be preserved). The main color of the body of the anaconda is grayish-green with large dark brown spots of a rounded or oblong shape, alternating in a checkerboard pattern. On the sides of the body there is a row of small light spots surrounded by a black stripe. This coloring perfectly hides the anaconda when it lurks, lying in a quiet backwater, where brown leaves and tufts of algae float on gray-green water. Anaconda's favorite places are low-flowing branches and backwaters, oxbow lakes and lakes, swampy lowlands in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. In such secluded corners, the anaconda, lying in the water, guards its prey - various mammals that come to drink (agouti, paka, peccaries), waterfowl, sometimes turtles and young caimans. Domestic pigs, dogs, chickens, ducks also fall prey to the anaconda when they approach the water.

Anaconda often crawls ashore and takes sunbaths, but does not move far from the water. She swims well, dives and can stay under water for a long time, while her nostrils are closed with special valves. When the reservoir dries up, the anaconda moves to the neighboring ones or goes downstream the river. During the dry period, which may occur in some areas, the anaconda burrows into the bottom silt and falls into a stupor, in which it remains until the rains resume. The process of molting at the anaconda also often takes place under water: in captivity, it was necessary to observe how the snake, having plunged into the pool, rubs its belly against its bottom and gradually pulls the crawl out from itself.

Anaconda is ovoviviparous, and the female bears from 28 to 42 cubs 50–80 cm long, but occasionally she can lay eggs. They do not live long in captivity - usually 5–6 years, the maximum life expectancy in captivity is 28 years. The main food of the anaconda is rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, but it also eats various reptiles, fish, and sometimes swallows snakes. Once a 5-meter anaconda strangled and ate a 2.5-meter dark python, which took her only 45 minutes. Contrary to the numerous "terrible" stories of "eyewitnesses", the anaconda cannot be considered dangerous for an adult. Single attacks on people are made by the anaconda, apparently by mistake, when the snake sees only part of the human body under water, or if it seems to her that they want to attack her or take away her prey. Only the case of the death of a thirteen-year-old boy swallowed by an anaconda, cited by R. Blomberg, is quite reliable. Local hunters, as a rule, are not afraid of the anaconda and kill it whenever possible. A number of myths and superstitions that exist among Indian tribes are associated with this snake.

COL FAUCETT'S 19 METERS ANACONDA

In the folklore of every nation there are legends about dragons and daredevils who fought with them. Is there a real basis for these myths?

There is - say scientists-realists. These myths are generated by the finds in the earth of the bones of gigantic lizards of the Mesozoic - the rest is a figment of the imagination. The dragon from the engraving depicting the duel of the medieval knight Winkelried is very similar to the plesiosaur. This sea lizard looked like a giant snake being pulled through a giant sea turtle.

The legend of St. George, scientists believe, is a reflection of people's persistent dislike for snakes, which is especially characteristic of Western culture. And it is no coincidence that when we want to call for silence or draw attention to ourselves, we emit a half-whistle-half-hiss.

Other zoologists, experts in unraveling the secrets of the animal world (even the term “cryptozoologist” appeared), believe that the prototypes of dragons lived in the historical era, and maybe they live to this day.

The image of the dragon is extremely popular in China, but it is difficult to agree that its real prototypes, barely reaching two meters, - the Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis) or the striped monitor lizard - are the only more or less "dragon-like" reptiles in China. No, these applicants are clearly unworthy of the title of dragon. The Belgian cryptozoologist Bernard Euvelmans believes that the mysterious animal depicted on the Babylonian gates of the goddess Ishtar, known to the Babylonians under the name "sirrush" and dedicated to the god Marduk, is nothing more than ... a dinosaur. The scientist believes that the Babylonians portrayed the lizard from life or according to the descriptions of eyewitnesses. Sirrush really looks like a reconstruction of a dinosaur, and next to it we see figures of animals that are by no means fabulous, but common at that time in Mesopotamia: now exterminated lions and wild bulls of aurochs.

In tropical Africa, there are still rumors about giant reptiles - eaters of hippos, which are similar to ceratosaurs. The indigenous population sincerely believes in their existence, and some Europeans saw them. To what are these testimonies attributed? A game of sick imagination?

... Karl Hagenbeck combined an observant naturalist and an enterprising businessman. Would he have invested a lot of money in a chimerical enterprise - catching the mysterious “chipekwe”, which was equipped with his most experienced trapper Hans Schomburgk? Before that, Schomburgk brought pygmy hippos to Europe, to the Hagenbeck Zoo - they were also considered a chimera, and now this chimera (and even with offspring) can be seen in zoos. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, a whole series of amazing discoveries of large animals was made in Central Africa: mountain gorilla, okapi, broad-faced rhinoceros, giant forest pig.

But Schomburgk, having become seriously ill, did not catch the Chipeque.

In the legends, a maiden was always sacrificed to dragons, which eventually became a reward for a knight. In those places where they worshiped crocodiles, this monstrous custom was a reality until recently ... How to regard this relic: maybe it is the maintenance of the cult of the "substitute"?

Belief in the dragon persisted for a long time: until the 18th century, their stuffed animals were brought to Europe. One such effigy was shown in Hamburg to Carl Linnaeus. The creator of modern biological systematics easily established: the "dragon" was skillfully combined from pieces of snake skin, a marten's skull, and eagle's paws. The disgraced owner of the "dragon" was so furious that Linnaeus had to urgently leave Hamburg to avoid revenge.

The science of reptiles called the small lizard “dragon” and suggested cryptozoologists to abandon fruitless searches, leaving myths to folklorists: reptiles still live on Earth, the size of which is able to compete with dragons.

The dragons that will be discussed are giant false-legged snakes, boas and pythons. Let us make a reservation right away: not all pseudo-legged giants, but all giant snakes more than 5–6 m long are pseudo-legged.

It was them that Pliny, Aristotle, Elian had in mind when they wrote about "dragons", putting into this concept the general meaning: "big snake". They retain the rudiments of the pelvic girdle and hind limbs - the ancestors of snakes were lizards, but the separation occurred in the Cretaceous period. The appearance of a modern snake is so perfect and complete that in the East there was an expression “to attach legs to a snake”, that is, to do something ridiculous and useless to anyone. In boas and pythons, the remains of the legs look like two short, sharp black spurs (or two claws) at the base of the tail. When snakes mate, intertwining in an "embrace", the screeching of spurs on the skin is heard in the jungle (or in the terrariums of zoos) from afar.

The existence of giant snakes somewhere "on the edge of the Oecumene" was known in ancient times. The army of Regulus, during a campaign in Africa, allegedly met a huge snake that killed many soldiers until they killed him himself. Pliny saw his skin, which was then brought to Rome. According to him, it was about 40 m long. The King of Egypt, Ptolemy II, the son of Ptolemy, an associate of Alexander the Great, had a hunting farm "Ptolemais termon" on the shores of the Red Sea. There he was brought from the depths of Africa a living "snake thirty cubits long."

Ancient authors attributed to such snakes the ability to ... choke and swallow elephants. These myths have been around for over 1,500 years in scientific literature. Edward Topsell even described how the snake does this: it hides its head in the crown of a tree, hanging its tail like a rope. When an unsuspecting elephant comes up to cut off branches with its trunk and send it into its mouth, the snake throws an arrow at it, grabs its head with its mouth so as to close the eyes of the elephant, and strangles it. In general, the method of hunting is described correctly - except for the size of the victim.

Tamils ​​in the south of Hindustan call giant snakes "anai-kolra" - "elephant killer". Most likely, the Tamils, who knew the fauna of their region much better than the Europeans, attributed the ability to kill elephants (by poison, not by strangulation) to the king cobra (Ophiophagus Hannah); but the Tamil nickname took root in the literature of past centuries in relation to giant snakes and even firmly stuck, slightly distorted, to a snake that can only meet an elephant in a zoo if it crawls out of a terrarium. This is the anaconda (Eunectes murinus), an inhabitant of the Amazon and Orinoco basins.

This snake is called the "spirit of the Amazon", the "mother of the waters"; the Indians of the basins of the rivers where it is found prefer not to call it by its proper name - so great is the fear of it. And one of the tribes, the Taruma, considers the anaconda to be its progenitor. The Indians believe that the gigantic anaconda can transform, for example, into a boat under a white sail; and when the first paddle steamers slapped across the Amazon, frightening the caimans, the myth was "modernized." At night, a snake-spirit in the form of a steamboat floats along the river, the portholes are lit, the voices of the team are heard, and then the “ghost steamer” stops at the first village that comes across. Residents who take it into their heads to take some cargo on board are never destined to return ...

What is a real anaconda, and not a mythical one?

“... We were slowly drifting downstream near the confluence of the Abunan with the Rio Negro, when almost under the very bow of the boat a triangular head and several feet of a wriggling body appeared. It was a giant anaconda. I rushed for the gun and, as she was already climbing ashore, with hasty aim, I put a blunt-nosed bullet into her spine, ten feet below the satanic head. The river immediately churned and frothed, and several heavy blows shook the bottom of the boat, as if we had stumbled upon a snag ...

With great difficulty I persuaded the Indians to turn towards the shore. In fear, they rolled their eyes so that only whites were visible ...

As accurately as possible, we measured its length; in that part of the body that protruded from the water, there were forty-six feet, and another seventeen feet were in the water, which totaled sixty-two feet.

The passage quoted is by Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. Being in the service of the governments of several Latin American countries, the British colonel was engaged in a complex and dangerous business: he outlined a demarcation line between three states - Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil - in an area where no white man had set foot before him. He saw things there that no one believed him later: ape people, lost cities, and even ... ghosts; in his diary, stories about all these wonders are interspersed with surprisingly vivid and accurate descriptions of the nature of South America and the life of the peoples inhabiting it. Fawcett was acquainted with the famous writers Henry Ryder Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by Fawcett's stories to write his Lost World.

Fawcett did not return from his last trip, and his notes were published by the youngest son Brian, published in the form in which they were written, without cutting the places that cause skepticism and ridicule. The episode of the meeting with the nineteen-meter anaconda Brian Fawcett commented bitterly: "When the news of this snake reached London, my father was declared a notorious liar."

But this skepticism is quite justified - how many times have you heard how adventurers and scientists who returned from the “green hell” swore by all the saints, assuring that they managed to see or shoot a snake much more than 10 m long. served as a pirogue (it was the same length or "much longer than our pirogue"), but if it was possible to lay it down with a bullet, then at the last moment it came to life and slipped away. Well, how can you not remember about the huge fish that always breaks off the hook! So the prize set by the New York Zoological Society in the 1930s remains unclaimed: a thousand dollars to anyone who presents physical evidence of the existence of an anaconda over 40 feet (12.2 meters) long, despite the fact that ex-President Theodore Roosevelt enlarged it 5 thousand dollars, reducing the length of the required snake to 30 feet (9.14 m). Nowadays, the award has been increased to 50 thousand, but no one has come for it!

But let's stop laughing. There is nothing fantastic in the fact that the anaconda, which the miner “killed” and managed to measure, could come to life and slip into the water, there is nothing fantastic. The level of organization of the nervous system of huge reptiles is quite low, and, figuratively speaking, they do not immediately realize that they are killed. So the fabulous trophy becomes a victim of piranhas and caimans at the bottom of the river. Therefore, the herpetological world, after reporting that in 1944 in Colombia, a petroleum geologist, having measured a “killed” anaconda with a steel tape measure (which then “came to life” and crawled away), received 11 m 43 cm, decided: to consider this figure reliable, maximum for anaconda. However, this case is an exception: zoologists believe only museum data.

However, it is not always possible to believe the size of the removed and dried skins. The length of one tiger python (Python Tolurus), measured immediately after death, was 247 cm, and the length of its dried skin was 297 cm.

However, they often talk not only about the fantastic size of the anaconda, but also about cases of its hunting for people. True, few of these stories stand up to criticism, although even a medium-sized anaconda is quite strong enough to strangle a person. It can be firmly said that a person attacked by a five-six-meter snake will not free himself without outside help. Employees of the "snake" Institute of Butantan and the police of Sao Paulo officially recorded the case when a person was strangled by a snake 3.75 m long. In 1939, in the circus arena in Belgrade, a python 4 m long strangled the artist who worked with him. If you unexpectedly step on this snake, falling, say, waist-deep into a swamp, then its reflexes will work instantly - before it realizes that you are not its prey. But this does not mean that the snake is stalking people and deliberately chasing them in order to devour them.

Nevertheless, there are rare exceptions to the rule: Rolf Blomberg, who was the first to penetrate the holy of holies of the "mother of waters", described two such cases; two are also known for Asian pythons: dark (Python molurus bivittatus) and reticulated (Python reticulatus). A case is widely known when a reticulated python on the island of Salebabu strangled and swallowed a fourteen-year-old boy, and in two more cases out of three, teenagers became victims of huge snakes ...

Rumor attributes a tendency to cannibalism to hieroglyphic pythons (Python sebae), and only on one of the islands of Lake Victoria, in other parts of the range this was not noticed behind them. But do not rush to blame the pythons: these terrible inclinations were developed in them ... the people themselves are serpent worshipers, who, on the orders of the priests, fed the weak and children to the pythons ...

There is no doubt that giant snakes see a person and “smell” the smell and warmth of his body (they have special organs for this) when a person does not suspect this, but they switch to aggression only with a direct threat from the latter.

Robert Shelford, curator at the Sarawak Museum, warned against being uncritical about reports of snake attacks. He noted two cases where forensics helped unmask killers who, by wrapping the corpses of their victims in rattan vines, attempted to mimic strangulation by a python. They did not know that the hug of a python does not leave scars ...

For some reason, giant snakes do not include humans in the list of their usual victims. Here the anaconda can feast on a crocodile - two-meter caimans were removed from its stomach. There were such cases in zoos: once in the Moscow Zoo, a boa constrictor entered his neighbor's crocodile and "without further ado" swallowed it. Anaconda - a thunderstorm of deer, bakers, capybaras, she also eats fish and turtles. Loosely attached jaws, a protected brain, and an exposed windpipe allow it to swallow large animals. Contrary to popular belief, giant snakes never break the victim's ribs, the snake's compression intensifies with each movement of the prey's chest until breathing stops; its strength is such that the ribs can be twisted out of the vertebrae. They do not "lick" a dead body before eating - this observation was made by those who saw prey regurgitated by a frightened snake.

When the reservoirs dry up in the summer, the anaconda sinks into silt and falls into a stupor, which was already known to Alexander Humboldt. Eyewitnesses say that its twisted rings, covered with a gray dried crust of mud on top, look like an imprint of the shell of a Jurassic ammonite mollusk - it remains in such a half-asleep state until the start of the rainy season.

Much further south lives another species of anaconda - Paraguayan (Eunectes notaeus). This anaconda does not exceed 2.5 m and has a brighter color, but in all other respects it is similar to its northern sister. Southern anacondas are more often found in zoos than giant anacondas. They breed there quite often.

Who knows, you might still come across an anaconda like the one Colonel Fawcett shot? From the Eocene deposits in Egypt, the remains of the Gigantophis snake about 15–18 m long are known. Zoologists believe that its estimated length, calculated on the basis of the size of the vertebrae, is noticeably overestimated and that modern snakes are larger than fossils.

In addition to anacondas, there are many boas in South America, and in the Eastern Hemisphere there are pythons, whose fame is somewhat less scandalous. The common boa constrictor (Boa constrictor) is the most famous. In South America, boa can be found not only in the selva and pampas: both in a rural house and in an Indian hut, a boa constrictor is a welcome guest. On the island of Grenada, one boa constrictor that crawled into an apartment was found in a toilet bowl.

Gerald Durrell wrote well about the constrictor: “The boa constrictor exterminates rats much more diligently than any cat, and besides, it is more beautiful as a decorative element: the boa constrictor, gracefully, as only snakes can do, wrapped around the beam of your house, is not the worst decoration. for a dwelling than beautiful rare wallpaper, and besides, you have the advantage that the decoration earns its own living.

The largest representative of this species reaches a length of 5.6 m. Pythons have gone far ahead in this respect: the reticulated python is considered the longest snake in the world - in one of the zoos in Japan there is a specimen over 12 m long. It is not much inferior to hieroglyphic (9.81 m) and dark - a subspecies of tiger (slightly less than 10 m). Like a boa constrictor, reticulated and hieroglyphic pythons do not avoid human habitation, but quite the contrary - it is clear that it is easier for them to catch rats, chickens, dogs and cats than cautious forest game.

During their excursions, pythons climb into warehouses, penetrate into the holds of ships. One such python "hare" safely swam in the hold from Indonesia to England. Reticulated pythons have been repeatedly caught in the capital of Thailand - Bangkok, and once caught even in the palace of the King of Thailand. This was in 1907, when Thailand was still called Siam. The defiler of the royal chambers was immediately killed, and inside he found a recent loss - the beloved Siamese cat of the royal family with a bell around his neck.

The reticulated python's passion for travel led it to be the first vertebrate to inhabit the island of Krakatoa in Indonesia. After the volcanic eruption in 1888, the island was completely flooded with molten lava flows and for a long time was devoid of flora and fauna, until the first settlers came. And an ordinary boa constrictor somehow swam 320 km across the sea and reached the island of St. Vincent. Pythons are skilled hunters: for hours they can lie in ambush without the slightest movement, pretending to be a rotten stump. Their gluttony is great: they found pythons, from the wall of the body of which antelope horns, porcupine quills protruded. Apparently, the snakes did not suffer from these inclusions. In 1948, an almost four-meter hieroglyphic python was delivered to the Dublin Zoo. Before entering the zoo, he lived for three months in captivity, and a year after his arrival in Dublin, the staff, cleaning his premises, found porcupine quills in the litter, undoubtedly swallowed almost a year and a half ago - hair (after all, the quills of hedgehogs and porcupines - this is a modified hair) snakes do not dissolve in the stomach juices. In the excrement of the snake, left eight days after its arrival from Singapore in Hamburg, they found fangs and hooves of a wild boar.

The higher the ambient temperature, the faster the digestion of pythons and other snakes. A python 2.5 m long at a temperature of 28 ° C digests a rabbit in four to five days, at a temperature of 18 ° C - in two weeks. When a rat was fed to a two-meter boa constrictor and an x-ray was taken, after 52 hours the rodent's skull was no longer visible, and after 118 hours the remains of the femur were barely visible in the stomach. Despite such an appetite, pythons can fast for a very long time. One hieroglyphic python starved in captivity for three years; The boa constrictor, which had been under observation for a year and a half on a hunger strike, lost only half of its weight. Python attacks are swift: a case is known when an adult leopard was taken from the stomach of a five-meter python. In single combat with this cat, the snake did not receive a single scratch. Jackals are also quite agile animals, but eyewitnesses observed how the hieroglyphic python twisted three of them one after the other. And one small python caught three sparrows in the terrarium at once, and the third one managed to catch on with its tail! Even the fast-paced mongoose gets to dine with the python.

Karl Hagenbeck, mentioned at the beginning of the story, somehow threw a goat weighing 12 kg to a seven-meter python, and he swallowed it; a few hours later he was also offered a sixteen-pound goat, which immediately followed the first.

Eight days later, a Siberian ibex weighing 35 kg fell at Hagenbeck, and the owner ordered, after cutting off his horns, to throw the corpse to the same snake Gargantua, believing that the snake would “save” this time, but she took the ibex for granted. A dark python swallowed a 54.5 kg pig at the Frankfurt Zoo.

In one zoo, a rhombic python (Morelia spilota) grabbed a rabbit at the same time as another python, a hieroglyph. So he calmly swallowed both the rabbit and his cage neighbor! Sometimes giant snakes in captivity show strange fastidiousness. In Paris, in a zoobotanical garden, rabbits, guinea pigs, kids, various birds were offered to the reticulated python - all to no avail. Finally, a goose was let into the cage, which the python immediately swallowed. It seemed that the fast was over, and the python would now eat everything. But it was not there - until his death, this python did not eat anything but geese.

When sated, the snake becomes clumsy - this feature is the basis of the method of catching pythons for zoos, used by hunters of the Malay Archipelago. A live piglet is placed in a cage made of bamboo poles and taken to where there is a chance to meet a python. The snake, having entered the cage, swallows the piglet, however, the distance between the bars is calculated so that everyone is allowed in, but no one is released. A satiated, swollen python has no choice but to curl up into a ball and wait for the arrival of the catchers.

Pythons, like anacondas, are credited with hunting for people, but these rumors are also groundless, although, I repeat, the pythons have enough strength for this. The story of how a ten-meter reticulated python, shot during the war in Burma, belched in agony the corpse of a Japanese soldier in uniform and helmet, should be classified as myths. However, the staff of zoo terrariums, who constantly have to deal with giant snakes, should not forget about the sharp teeth with which their jaws are seated, swift attacks and exorbitant strength.

Once in the Leningrad Zoo, a relatively small python in an instant pressed the hands of an attendant to the body, who grabbed him by the neck in order to put him in a bag and move him to another room. The attendant immediately began to resemble one of the sons of Laocoön, but he did not let go of the snake's neck, fearing that it would grab his nose. It was as if several automobile tires were put on him - only the head and part of the purple face were sticking out, and a wheeze was heard from the "tires". But this exotic picture, more appropriate in an adventure film than in the center of Leningrad, lasted no more than a minute - soon, by common efforts, the python was placed in a bag. Usually, when working with such snakes, there is a rule - the number of attendants is determined at the rate of one person per one meter of the snake.

Anacondas and boas are viviparous reptiles, but this live birth is imaginary: the soft shell of the egg bursts before they are laid.

The zoo found an unusual caring anaconda: the female took eggs with an unexploded shell in her mouth and, biting her, helped the cubs to free themselves. She swallowed egg shells and underdeveloped eggs. Since the anaconda gives birth in the water, it is very important to help the serpent get out into the world in time. True, such care at such a low level of organization of the nervous system sometimes manifests itself not as it should, and the cubs are swallowed. The discovery of young and unfertilized eggs in the stomach during the autopsy of wild-caught snakes baffled zoologists until such cases were observed in captivity. Pythons, on the other hand, lay eggs and, moreover, “incubate” them. This fact became known as early as 1841, when a female python laid eggs in a zoobotanical garden in Paris. Subsequently, it was found that the temperature between the rings of the incubating female increased by 11–17 °C. It turns out that in a mother snake, the circular muscles are continuously contracting (10–20 times per minute), which produces the heat necessary for the development of the embryo. In nature, pythons lay their eggs mostly in the rotten hollow trunk of a huge tree and curl up around the masonry there.

In captivity, pythons and boas live for quite a long time: from 18 to 40 years, the anaconda lived to 29. There are also capricious species: a short, or motley, python (Python curtus) from India, a dog-headed boa (Corallus caninus). In this tree snake, the slightest change in the musty atmosphere of a terrarium can provoke a prolonged hunger strike.

Of the pythons, the most acceptable in captivity is the royal python (Python regius). It is quite small: the length of the largest is just over one meter. When picked up, it rolls into a tight ball, hiding its head, preferring passive defense. In West Africa, it is called “ball-snake” (ball-snake) or “shame-snake” (shame-snake). The kids there are playing with this python, like with a living puzzle, trying to unfold it, but it is not given.

Apart from these games, in West Africa he is not particularly offended, but on the contrary: when in 1967 an American trapper wanted to take out of one African country 1265 royal and hieroglyphic pythons caught by him, the indignant residents staged a whole demonstration of protest with window smashing and threats reprisals. The chiefs of Nigeria, in past treaties with the British, have invariably made special reservations about the inviolability of pythons.

The hieroglyphic python is recognized as a totem by the Mandingo and other peoples of West Africa. In Dahomey, for example, spacious huts were provided for the sacred pythons. They were believed to visit every newborn in the first eight days after birth.

Despite their formidable fame, pythons and boas are by no means invincible: their encounters with mammals or other reptiles sometimes end badly for them. It happens that tigers, crocodiles and even hyenas gain the upper hand over them. And here is a completely incredible incident, and if it were not for the testimony of an impartial naturalist Jim Corbett, then one could doubt it: a python more than 5 m long was killed by two otters. These fearless predators attacked him at the same time, and therefore succeeded. And one giant snake had to fight off eight vultures at the same time, and these scavengers also won.

One naturalist, having heard the squealing and grunting of a herd of wild boars in the jungle, rushed there and found such a sight: a python grabbed a desperately squealing pig, and adult pigs, surrounding the snake, tore it with their fangs and trampled it with their hooves. The python released the boar, and the herd, frightened by the man, sped off. The python was so mutilated that he could not crawl any further. If the observer did not intervene, the pigs would simply gobble him up.

If a python happens to be inadvertently on the path of columns of wandering ants, which is not uncommon in Africa, it will not do well, and especially a clumsy, well-fed python. That is why the Ashanti hunters quite seriously assure that, having crushed large prey, the python, before starting to eat, makes reconnaissance - a circle through the forest: is an ant invasion threatened in the next one and a half to two hours?

However, man remains enemy number one for giant snakes. 12 million are transferred to the skin per year - they can encircle the globe along the equator!

And now, in addition to the interest in snake skin, there is an interest in live snakes. In 1970-1971, 100 thousand copies were delivered to pet stores in the United States alone. Some of the most popular snakes are small pythons and boas. Therefore, in the Red Book there was also a place for pseudo-legs: two species of boas from Madagascar (Acrantophis madagascariensis, Sanzitiia madagascariensis), a slender boa constrictor (Epicrates striatus), a tiger python, boas from Round Island (Bolyeria multocarinata, Casarea dussumieri). True, a zoologist from Moscow State University B. D. Vasilyev, having visited Madagascar, was convinced that there are still many boas there - several of them were even brought to Moscow, to the zoo, where the team is working on the problem of their reproduction in captivity. Rare tree pythons and amethyst pythons from New Guinea were bred in captivity by zoologist N. Orlov.

One of the rarest species is the Guatemalan boa constrictor (Ungaliophis continentolis). It was described in 1890, but until recently this species could only be judged by three specimens in museums. It was not possible to catch him, but once a certain herpetologist, looking through reptiles in one of the American zoos, recognized in a snake that was considered a young ordinary boa constrictor, a Guatemalan boa constrictor. The snake, like some other reptiles, arrived from Guatemala with a shipment of bananas and was sold for only two and a half dollars to the zoo in the same capacity: "common boa." Herpetologists rushed to rummage through the entire batch of bananas and to this day they rummage through all the batches from Guatemala, but how can luck fall out twice ...

Where boas and pythons are not deified, they are willingly eaten. In Vietnam, a three-meter dark python provides food for a whole family for a week. Piton meat tastes like veal. A. Brem, having obtained a hieroglyphic python in Sudan, ordered to "cook a piece of this meat." As he further wrote, “Its snow-white color promised much, but it turned out to be hard and resilient, so that we could hardly chew it. It tasted like chicken meat." It turns out that people ate pythons much more than people's pythons ...

Are there boas in our country? Yes there is. These are boas in all their habits - ambushes, throws, strangling the victim with rings, only they didn’t come out tall, therefore they are called not boas, but boas ... They live in the steppes, semi-deserts and deserts of the North Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, as well as Kazakhstan and Central Asia. We have four types of them: eastern, western, slender and sandy boas (Eryxtataricus, E. jaculus, E. elegans, E. miliaris). The length of most of our snakes does not exceed 1.5 m. Only in the colubrid family there are snakes over 2 m long.

From the book All About Everything. Volume 1 the author Likum Arkady

What is the largest snake in the world? There are over 2000 different types of snakes. These creatures cause negative emotions in people, which has led to many erroneous stories about them. So, sometimes they say that there are huge, terrifying snakes with a length of 18 to 21

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1 [Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and Medicine] author

What is the largest railway station in the world? The largest railway station in the world is Grand Central Station in New York. Trains arrive and leave it every two minutes. Half a million people pass through the station every day.

From the book Crossword Guide author Kolosova Svetlana

What is the largest venomous snake in the world? The largest venomous snake is the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), also known as the hamadryad, which lives in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. Its length reaches 5.5 meters. The king cobra (locally called naya) is a good climber.

From the book 100 Great Wildlife Records author Nepomniachtchi Nikolai Nikolaevich

What is the largest snake in the world? The largest (in other words, the longest and thickest) snakes are found among non-venomous ones. The largest modern snake is the anaconda (Eunectes murinus), which lives along the banks of rivers, lakes and swamps in Brazil and Guiana. The length of the anaconda can reach

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1. Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and medicine author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

What is the largest bird? The largest living bird is the African ostrich, which can grow up to 2.44 meters and weigh 136

From the author's book

THE SHORTEST SNAKE IN THE WORLD - THE DOUBLE-LINED NARROW SNAKE The longest specimens of this species (Leptotyphlops bilineata), which lives only on the islands of Martinique, Barbados and Santa Lucia in the Caribbean Sea, reach only 110 mm. True, there is an opinion that the brahmin blind (Fiamphotyphlops braminus)

From the author's book

THE LARGEST LIZARD IN THE WORLD - THE LIZARD FROM KOMODO ISLAND The largest lizard, reaching 4 m in length and weighing 180 kg. It feeds mainly on carrion, but also attacks ungulates. The unique Komodo National Park is world famous, protected by UNESCO and includes a group

Anaconda is a snake from a separate genus of anacondas, a subfamily of boas, a scaly order, a class of reptiles.

Along with the python and the boa constrictor, the anaconda is one of the largest snakes in the world, its length is from 5 to 6 meters, and its weight is about 100 kg. The largest of the currently known has a length of about 9 meters, weight 130 kg.

The civilized world, relatively recently, learned about the existence of the anaconda - this viviparous snake that lives in the jungles of South America.

Lifestyle and habitat

Anaconda lives in the remote, inaccessible jungles of the tropical part of South America in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, northeast Peru, Ecuador and northern Bolivia, eastern Paraguay and Guyana, French Guiana and the island of Trinidad, and it was not possible to study it at all so long ago. People learned the basic information about this large snake only in 1992, when the biologist Jesus Rivas, together with a group of scientists, studied the anaconda in its habitat, not far from Venezuela.

The body of the anaconda is designed so that with a thickness of its body of 14-15 cm, it swallows quite a large prey whole, and then its body stretches to the size of the animal that it swallowed. The color of these snakes is varied and depends on the species. There are grayish green, there are yellow, light brown and almost dark. The skin is scaly with rounded darker patches arranged in a checkerboard pattern. This coloration helps the anaconda to perfectly camouflage among coastal plants and algae.

Anaconda is ideally adapted to life in the water. Its long powerful body, consisting of only muscles, wriggling in the water like a powerful propeller, gives it the ability to swim quickly both on the surface of the water and in depth. Moreover, when it swims, the eyes and nostrils remain on the surface like those of crocodiles, and when immersed in water, the nostrils are closed with special valves. Eyes closed with a transparent protective film under water remain open, and she sees everything even in muddy water. The ability to slow down the heartbeat while using less oxygen allows her to stay underwater for long periods of time.

Anaconda is a carnivorous predator and feeds only on animal food. It eats everything it comes across. These are wild animals: tapirs, peccaries, turtles, small crocodiles and waterfowl. Often attacks domestic animals coming to the watering place: sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks and even dogs. It can hunt both in water and on land. In the water, usually the anaconda, hiding, waits for the victim, and when it is close, it rushes at it. In other cases, having good hearing, the anaconda, being under water, can hear the sounds of animals that have come to the watering hole for a hundred meters, quietly swim up, and then rush at the unsuspecting animal with a lightning throw. While on land, these cunning snakes can lurk on a trail leading to a watering place, or perch on thick, low-lying tree branches and, when the animal approaches, rush at it.

The anaconda does not have fangs or chewing teeth, they are not needed. But located almost at the same level, a continuous row of teeth works like a powerful vice. Once in such a vise, not a single creature can escape. Holding the prey, the anaconda wraps its body around it with multiple rings and strangles it until the victim stops breathing. After that, the anaconda swallows the prey whole, pulling on it like a stocking on a leg, stretching its mouth and throat. After that, the loaded anaconda looks for a secluded place and lies down for several days digesting food. One such serving of anaconda is enough for several weeks. Then she goes hunting again. It is not customary for these snakes to reckon with kinship, they can devour each other.

When the anaconda is full, it loves to soak up the sun, exposing its round sides to it. By this, it kind of warms up the blood, because like all reptiles it is a cold-blooded creature. But far from the reservoir, it does not crawl away and soon plunges into the water. If the lake suddenly dries up during the dry season, it tries to find a new body of water or burrows into the mud and bottom silt, moving into an anabiotic state, in which it remains until the first rains.

Anaconda leads an isolated, solitary lifestyle, but during the mating season, these snakes gather in groups for mating. Females are larger in size than males. Anaconda gives birth to live serpents. 7-8 months after mating events, the female gives birth to forty or more small anacondas 50-80 cm long. Immediately after birth, the cubs are able to swim and get their own food. However, they often become prey for many animals and birds, and quite a few of them survive.

Rarely does anyone dare to attack an adult anaconda, therefore, among animals in nature, the anaconda has practically no enemies. Who wants to fight this big snake, which also has incredible strength. After all, the weight of a nine-meter anaconda can reach up to 200 kg! A snake of this size easily copes with a small cow. What can we say about a pig or a dog!

With such an impressive size, the anaconda is able to move silently and go unnoticed. In those places where she lives, the inhabitants of these areas are careful and attentive, believing that the anaconda can attack and kill. Attacks are very rare, and they fall into the category of exceptions. As observations show, the anaconda, in other matters, like all other snakes, sensing the approach of a person, is in a hurry to get out in the other direction. Obviously an exaggeration can be considered the stories of some eyewitnesses about their meeting with anacondas with a body length of 12 meters or more. Tales about the hypnotic abilities of the anaconda, which allegedly hypnotizes its victim with a glance, are also fabulous.

Anaconda is still considered a little studied reptile. In many countries, for the purpose of studying, they are kept in serpentaria, where they are under constant supervision. There are several cases of anacondas breeding in captivity. The life span of the anaconda in natural conditions has not been established, but in terrariums they live up to 20 years.

Types of anaconda

Four species are currently known: Green, Yellow, Dark and Bolivian. All of them lead a generally similar lifestyle, the differences are mainly in their size, color and habitat.

Green or giant anaconda, lat. Eunectes murinus. It is the largest of all. Its length can be more than 9 meters. It is especially common in the Amazon in Brazil, and around the Orinoco River in Colombia. Often found in the meadows of Llanos in Venezuela, in Ecuador and Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, Guiana and Peru. Occasionally, green anacondas have been seen in Florida. The color of this anaconda is green-olive on the back, yellowish on the belly. Dark, sometimes almost black spots stand out on the back and sides. The scales of the skin are large in front, decreasing towards the tail.

Paraguayan or yellow anaconda, lat. Eunectes notaeus. The second largest after green. There are individuals reaching a length of 4.5 meters. They live in Paraguay, in Northern Argentina, are found in Bolivia. The yellow anaconda usually chooses places with high humidity: small lakes, swamps, overgrown banks of small rivers and streams. Often found in seasonally flooded areas. It feeds on fish, turtles, lizards, small caimans, waterfowl. Sometimes steals bird eggs. The Paraguayan anaconda is a solitary snake. A pair is formed only in April - May. It is an object of intense hunting due to the beautiful leather used for haberdashery, as well as meat, which is considered a delicacy.

Dark anaconda or Anaconda Deschauenseya, lat. Eunectes deschauenseei. It lives in the northern regions of Brazil, on the coast in French Guiana, is found in Guyana. Relatively small compared to others. Usually its length is slightly less than 2 meters, but some individuals up to 4 meters or more came across. It prefers to settle in hard-to-reach places, therefore it is little studied.

Lat. Eunectes beniensis or Beni's anaconda is a medium-sized boa constrictor, usually about 4 meters long. It lives in tropical forests in the Beni River Valley in Bolivia. Anaconda Beni is a rare species that is not common in other regions of South America, so it became known about it only in 2002. Scientists have not yet decided whether to consider it a separate species or classify it in the Paraguayan anaconda.

Anaconda, like all boas, are still mysterious creatures that people treat negatively and consider it one of the most dangerous and unpredictable predators. Even the origin of its name is still controversial. It is believed that the name "anaconda" appeared in South America from the Tamil phrase "copra" - which means a killer, and "yane" - an elephant. In other versions, this word is translated as a bolt of lightning and others. All these names come from the homeland of these snakes. The largest anaconda in the world, with a length of 11.43 m, was caught in the swampy area of ​​Colombia. At the moment, a green anaconda lives in the New York Zoological Society, about 9 meters in length and weighing 130 kg.

Difference from boas and pythons

Despite the general external similarity, the anaconda differs from other types of boas and from pythons. All these snakes belong to the Scaly order, but the boa constrictor is a representative of the false-legged family, and the python is from the python family. All of them are not poisonous and use one way of eating food, swallowing the prey whole. Boas are found mainly in Europe and Asia, although they are found in Madagascar, the Fiji Islands and New Guinea. There are about 60 types of them. This is what an emerald boa constrictor looks like.

Water boas live only in South America, these are all the four types of anacondas listed above: green, Bolivian, Paraguayan and dark.

Pythons live in Asia, India, China and Indochina, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippine Islands. In total there are about 22 species. The largest of these is the reticulated python. The largest known now in the Japanese Zoological Garden, its length is 12.2 m, and its weight is more than 200 kg.

The essential difference between pythons and boas is the reproduction of offspring. Boa constrictors give birth to live cubs, and pythons lay eggs, from which cubs then hatch. Both boas and pythons, like most reptiles, are slow creatures in normal situations, but during the hunt they almost immediately rush to the victim. They have developed night vision, a good sense of smell. In addition, they have the property of thermolocation, due to which they detect a living being in the dark.

In recent years, quite a few lovers of exotic animals have appeared, which they keep at home. They also include pythons, boas and anacondas, which are kept in special terrariums. Although it is not uncommon for these huge snakes to break free and bring a lot of trouble. In some Asian countries, such as India, Thailand, Cambodia, locals tame these huge snakes. They keep them in basements and provide them with food. Getting used to the owners and taking root in the house, these snakes protect the home from poisonous snakes, scorpions, phalanxes, rats and other wild animals. A house that has its own python usually costs significantly more. Be that as it may, despite their negative characteristics and the generally negative attitude of people towards them, we have to admit that anacondas, as equals, occupy a certain place among other representatives of the earth's flora.

For writers and filmmakers, giant reptiles are the most beloved characters in stories and horror films. Information about these individuals is too exaggerated to be more 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 became interested in this discovery and offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for the supply of a reptile between five and nine meters long. 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 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 under water.

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.

reptile life

Anaconda is most often found on the swampy 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, the anacondas drift downstream into other channels or burrow into the mud before the rainy season arrives.

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. After that, it opens its mouth strongly and swallows the animal whole.

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.

The 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.

huge reptile

The giant green anaconda lives in South America. This was due to its color and large size. Its length is from five to ten meters. 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

A snake called the giant man-eating anaconda lives in the Amazon. 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 victim in full, but only part of the body, or if it 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.

Anacondas are giant reptiles that can end up being pretty sad. They do not have poison, but have a powerful body and muscles with which they squeeze their prey. Along with anacondas, there are many snakes whose body length has an impressive figure.

The largest snakes in the entire globe

A very large, gigantic, heavy reptile that chose the Amazon as its habitat. Females can weigh up to 250 kg. The body diameter reaches 30 cm, and in length - 9-11 meters. Anacondas do not live in deep rivers, but mostly live in branches, in shallow water. This allows them to sneak up on prey and strangle it.

The largest individuals reach 10 meters in length. Basically, the body length is from 4 to 8 meters. If they live in captivity, for example, in a zoo, they can reach a length of 12.5 meters. An interesting fact is that the body weight can be 160 kg.

The body of the dark-colored python is the largest subspecies of the tiger python. Usually, individuals reach 8 meters in length, but quite large specimens are found, with a body length of up to 9.5 meters.

Quite an unusual reptile. On the body there are light spots, similar to eyes. They are located on the sides, and the head is decorated on both sides with two pink or red stripes. Moreover, the eyes do not merge with each other, but create a chaotic round dance. Grows up to 6 meters.

Habitat - South and Central America, Australia, South Mexico. The length of the diamond python reaches 5 meters. It looks like a beautiful reptile, on the body of which spots similar to diamonds are scattered. Each speck is decorated with a black or dark purple border. The play of colors of this python attracts the human eye.

A poisonous snake, but it is in 6th place in terms of the length of its body. Some specimens grow up to 5 meters. It should be noted that the cobra is the longest and largest snake. It grows in length all the time. The king cobra is a long-liver, there were specimens that lived for more than 30 years. Outwardly, it resembles snakes. It is characterized by a slender build, with bristles on its head and smooth scales on its back.

The boa constrictor is from the False-legged family. Feeds rarely, but aptly. In one sitting, it can swallow a small mammal, bird or reptile. Goes hunting only after the food is digested. The body length can be 3-3.5 meters.

Refers to poisonous snakes. Lives in Africa. Short in length but very thick. The head has the shape of a triangle, not very large in size, but flat and wide. The eyes are small and the tail is short.

Refers to poisonous snakes. Habitat - South America. Reptiles have a body length of 3 meters, but some individuals exceed this figure and reach 4 meters in length. Weight varies from 3 kg to 5 kg. That is, long, but not very heavy. Therefore, in ninth place.

From the viper family. Habitat - Dagestan. Leads an active lifestyle, starting from April, in October, vital processes decrease. A beautiful hunter with a dense body and a slightly flattened muzzle. With a body weight of 3 kg, they reach a length of 2 meters. Refers to poisonous reptiles. The poison is toxic. A more dangerous venom is in the cobra.

There is an opinion among the people that they allegedly saw such huge snakes that their appearance frightened and instilled panic. It was about 18-meter and 21-meter giants. But such snakes do not exist in the world, such incredible sizes are simply unthinkable. Rather, it is the rich imagination of man.