Anaconda

Anacondas are large, nonvenomous boas of the genus Eunectes. They are found in tropical South America.

The most familiar species is the green anaconda, "Eunectes murinus", notable for being one of the world's largest snakes. Green anacondas can grow to be 5.21 m (17 ft) in length and weighing 97.5 kg (215 lb).[1] They are found east of the Andes in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and on the island of Trinidad.

Other anacondas are the yellow anaconda, Eunectes notaeus, a smaller species found in eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina; and the dark-spotted anaconda, "Eunectes deschauenseei", a rare species found in northeastern Brazil, coastal French Guiana and Guyana.

All three species are aquatic snakes that prey on other aquatic animals, including fish, river fowl, caiman, and capybaras. Some accounts exist of anacondas preying on domestic animals such as goats and ponies that venture too close to the water.

While encounters between people and anacondas may be dangerous, they do not regularly hunt humans. Nevertheless, threat from anacondas is a familiar trope in comics, movies and adventure stories set in the Amazon jungle. Anacondas have also figured prominently in South American folklore, where they are sometimes depicted as shapeshifting mythical creatures called encantados. Local communities and some European explorers have given accounts of giant anacondas, legendary snakes of much greater proportion than any confirmed specimen.

Applied loosely, the term "anaconda" may also refer to any large snake that "crushes" its prey by constricting.The Merriam-Webster online dictionary states[3] the word is probably a modification of the Sinhalese word henakandayā,[4][5][6] which is used to refer to a small slender green whip snake found in Sri Lanka. However, certain other literature[7][8] state henakandayā refers to a now extinct constrictor once found there. Richard Boyle (the Sri Lankan English consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary) writes in his book 'Sinbad In Serendib':[9]

The first reference to the anaconda in English is by R. Edwin (probably a pseudonym) in a letter to the Scots magazine concerning an encounter with a tiger-devouring serpent in then Dutch-held Ceylon. This was published in the 1768 issue under the discursive heading, "Description of the ANACONDA, a monstrous species of serpent. In a letter from an English gentleman, many years resident in the island of Ceylon, in the East Indies."[10] However, this account of an incident on the outskirts of Colombo is a figment of the imagination, full of the popular misconceptions regarding constrictors in an age of limited scientific knowledge of snakes.
—Richard Boyle

The Oxford English Dictionary gives a first source as John Ray's "List of Indian Serpents" from the Leyden Museum, as "anacandaia of the Ceylonese, i.e. he that crushes the limbs of buffaloes and yoke beasts," but that "anacandaia" is "not now a native name in Sri Lanka, and not satisfactorily explained either in Cingalese [Sinhalese] or Tamil"—though Henry Yule lists "āṇaik'k'onḍa" to means "having killed an elephant" in Tamil.

The anaconda is a large, non-venomous snake native to tropical South America and Northern Africa. They mostly live in swampy or watery areas. The green anaconda is the biggest snake in the world, with the largest measuring up to 37.5 feet in length. The anaconda is related to the boa constrictor snake. They kill their prey by constriction or squeezing. They wrap themselves around their prey and squeeze to prevent the prey from breathing. They then swallow the animal whole. Play the following videos to learn more about the anaconda snake.