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, coming to the watering place (agouti, paca, 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 accept that it real prototypes, barely reaching two meters, - the Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis) or the striped monitor lizard - 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 in the end 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 that cryptozoologists abandon fruitless searches, leaving myths to folklorists: reptiles still live on Earth, the size of which can 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 a general meaning into this concept: “ big snake". They retain the rudiments of the pelvic girdle and hind limbs - the ancestors of snakes were lizards, but the separation occurred back in Cretaceous. 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, Tamils, who knew much better than Europeans animal world of their region, the ability to kill elephants (by poison, not by strangulation) was attributed 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. Serving the governments of several Latin American countries, the British colonel was engaged in a difficult 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 of all these miracles are interspersed with amazingly vivid and accurate descriptions of nature. South America and the lives of the peoples who inhabit it. Fawcett was familiar with famous writers Henry Rider 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. Organization level nervous system huge reptiles is low enough, and figuratively speaking, it does not immediately dawn on them that they have been 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 an 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 was found to have recently lost his beloved Siamese cat 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, a reticulated python was offered rabbits, guinea pigs, kids, various birds - 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 royal python(Pythonregius). 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 him out of one African country 1265 royal and hieroglyphic pythons caught by him, then the outraged residents staged a whole demonstration of protest with smashing windows and death threats. 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 away. 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 the meal, 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 gird Earth 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, I have. These are boas in all their habits - ambushes, throws, strangling the victim with rings, only they did not 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 various kinds snake. 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 book latest book facts. Volume 1 [Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and Medicine] author

Which railroad station the largest 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 poisonous snake is the king cobra (Ophio-phagus hannah), she is a hamadryad that lives in tropical forests South-East Asia. Its length reaches 5.5 meters. King Cobra ( local name Naya) climbs well

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 large lizard, reaching 4 m in length and weighing 180 kg. It feeds mainly on carrion, but also attacks ungulates. Unique national park Komodo is world famous, protected by UNESCO and includes a group of

Everyone who has ever met face to face with a snake will confirm that an unexpected meeting is always unpleasant and causes the only desire - to rebound.

But if you see a snake from afar, you can examine it and observe its behavior. It is worth noting that human fears about snakes are exaggerated. If you study their behavior, you can understand that the probability of dying in an accident is much higher than from a snake bite. Nevertheless, there are snakes that involuntarily inspire fear. So, what is the largest snake in the world. The longest or largest snake in the world is the Asian reticulated python. He is in natural environment, grows up to 10 or even 12 meters in length. Each individual can reach 150 kilograms. But no more.

The biggest snake is the anaconda

Giant or Green. It is only 10 meters long, but its weight can be 220 kilograms. However, the Green anaconda may well compete with the Asian python both in size and length. The largest living snake lives in New York, in the terrarium of the Zoological Society. She is about 9 meters tall and weighs 130 kilograms. But the largest length of the anaconda, which was recorded - 11 meters and 43 centimeters. It was measured in 1944 by a petroleum geologist who studied the jungles of Colombia and was looking for deposits of "black gold".

However, the main evidence, the body of the "queen of the anacondas", did not remain. According to the geologist, after stunning and measuring the snake came to its senses and crawled away. But the herpetological world still recognized the existence of a snake of this size. Since then, the length of almost 12 meters has been a universally recognized record. It was even entered into the Guinness Book of Records. In the 1930s, the zoological community announced a $1,000 reward for anyone who could prove the existence of an anaconda over 12.2 meters long. After that, former US President Theodore Roosevelt increased the prize to 6 thousand dollars, and reduced the size of the snake to 9.12 meters. Today, the payment has already grown to 50 thousand dollars, but still no one can get it. Therefore, a 9-meter copy from the New York terrarium, apparently, is the limit. This gives a trump card to supporters of the leadership of the Asian reticulated python. Although the only snake of the species, the length of which can be personally estimated, is one meter shorter than the anaconda from New York. The python lives in the Philadelphia Zoo.

All about anaconda

However, it is worth noting that the remains of the Giant African python, which lived 55 million years ago, were found in Egypt. Part of the spine suggests that the snake had a length of 11 meters and 80 centimeters. Today, the average length of an ordinary anaconda is about 6 meters. And the cases of its growth up to nine meters are rare. The snake lives in the tropical forests of South America, in particular, in the quiet backwaters of the Amazon. There the Giant Anaconda searches for its prey and guards. It feeds on small and medium sized mammals. She pounces on the victim, covers her body with rings, after which she strangles and swallows whole. The anaconda digests food from several hours to several days. At this time, she does not eat anything, and also does not hunt. Just lies quietly in a half-asleep in a secluded place. And, despite numerous cinematic and folklore legends, the anaconda is not dangerous for an adult. Cases of snake attacks on people are rare. Hunters, as a rule, do not experience fear of meeting with anacondas. They destroy them in the same way that wolf farmers do so that the snakes do not exterminate the birds and livestock.

Anacondas live in remote places, so it is rather difficult to establish their numbers. However, it is already known that the re-population of this snake species is not a problem. Giant anacondas are ovoviviparous. The average snake litter is up to 40 newborns. In addition, they quietly breed both in the natural environment and in captivity. Females and males are not picky about the choice of a partner, it is enough just to get one into the visibility zone of the other. The largest snake on earth is not poisonous. She kills her prey by strangulation. And it does not release venom like other snakes. This is the main difference between the Giant Anaconda and the King Cobra - this is the largest poisonous snake in the world. She has the highest amount of poison.

Burmese python, or dark tiger python

Grows up to 9, 15 meters. This is a record copy.

This python is the largest of the tiger python subspecies. It can grow up to 8 meters or more. However, individuals up to 5.5 meters long are usually found. The weight of the snake is about 70 kilograms.

Indian python or light tiger python

Reaches 6 meters in length.

The light tiger python differs from the dark one by the presence of the so-called light "eyes" in the centers of the spots, which are located on the sides of the body, as well as reddish or pink stripes on the sides of the head. In general, this subspecies is smaller than the dark tiger python. Large individuals can grow up to only 6 meters.

King Cobra

It is the largest venomous snake.

She has the greatest length among other poisonous ones. Some individuals can grow up to 5.6 meters. However, on average, a cobra is only 3-4 meters long.

boa constrictor

This is a snake from the pseudo-legged family. Individuals can grow up to 3-4 meters in length.

The common boa constrictor feeds on reptiles and mammalian birds.

Black Mamba

This snake is the most venomous in Africa. In length, it grows up to 2.4 - 3 meters. Some individuals - up to 4.5 meters.

Aurora and Black Mamba

The black mamba can crawl at speeds up to 11 kilometers per hour. But with short throws and on flat terrain, the snake can reach speeds of up to 19 kilometers per hour.

bushmaster

This is one of the largest representatives of poisonous snakes in South America from the subfamily of pit viper snakes.

Bushmaster can grow up to 3 meters in length, less often up to 4. At the same time, the body weight of the snake is quite low - only 3-5 kilograms.

Eastern brown snake

This snake can be found in different colors. But usually the color of oriental brown is brown.

Body length - about 2 meters.

Gyurza

This snake can be found on the territory of Russia and countries former USSR. Gyurza is the most large snake family of vipers.

Feeding viper

Together with the tail, it has a length of up to 2 meters and a weight of about 3 kilograms. Viper venom has a pronounced hemolytic effect. In terms of toxicity, it can be second only to cobra venom.
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According to legends and foreign cinema anaconda- incredibly huge and dangerous snake. Surprisingly, it is not uncommon to hear from people about the size of the anaconda, exceeding their true size by two to three times. This, of course, is all fairy tales and fictions, once transferred as official data. Everything is much more modest, the anaconda is indeed the largest snake, but only statistically. She is also quite calm and such large prey as a person does not interest her.

Origin of the species and description

Anacondas belong to the subfamily of boas of the false-legged family, scaly order, reptile class. Experts are increasingly inclined to the absence of subspecies in the common anaconda. According to other sources, four varieties of anaconda are still distinguished, each of which differs slightly in size, color and habitat.

• Giant anaconda;
• Paraguayan;
• Deshauerskaya;
• Anaconda Eunectes beniensis.

Anaconda, like boas, has a small head, but the body is somewhat more massive, it even looks disproportionate. The length of the snake can reach 5 - 6 meters, but not 9 - 11 or 20, as mentioned in some sources. The maximum weight is supposedly 130 kg, in most cases it is even far from a hundred.

These snakes are considered potentially dangerous to humans because they are able to swallow prey almost equal in weight to themselves. If a snake weighs under a hundred, then it will not be difficult to swallow a person and digest him. But still, he is large and smart for a snake, and all known cases of attacks on humans indicate that this happened by mistake.

Appearance and features

Anaconda is the largest snake, and in length it is inferior to the reticulated python, but in terms of weight it is the largest. It is interesting to note that the females of these snakes are larger than the males. The maximum measured length of the anaconda was 5.4 meters, with a weight of 100 kg. But in nature, there are probably individuals a little larger. According to experts, anacondas can reach a length of 6.7 meters and a weight of 130 kg.

The average length of the snake is 3-4 meters, and the weight is 50-70 kg. The diameter of the reptile reaches 35 cm, after swallowing the victim, it stretches to right size. Snakes grow all their lives, the first years are much more intense than after, but it can be safely assumed that the largest individuals are of a respectable age.

Video: Anaconda

The head is small compared to the body, but the open mouth is huge and capable of stretching, like the pharynx. This allows the anaconda to pay less attention to the volume of the victim. The teeth are short, they can bite painfully. But the fangs are absent, if the victim is swallowed, they would only interfere. Saliva is harmless and there are no poisonous glands. The wound will be painful, but safe for life.

The color of the anaconda masks it against the background of its habitats. These are reservoirs, shallow water, tropics. The body color is close to marsh, gray-green. There are two rows of dark, brown, brown spots on the back. They are round or oblong up to 10 cm in diameter, solid color, alternate in a checkerboard pattern. And on the sides there are completely lighter stripes strewn with small spots. Sometimes the spots are hollow, like rings, or uneven circles. The diameter of these is from 1 to 3 cm. The back of the snake is often darker than the belly.

Where does the anaconda live?

The habitat of the anaconda is almost the entire mainland - South America, except for its southern part. Of course, the climate at all latitudes is not suitable for the snake to live, since it is already a very long stretch from north to south near the mainland. To the east of the Andes, countries such as Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, French Guiana serve as the habitat of the anaconda. Separately allocate the island of Trinidad.

If considered by subspecies, then the giant anaconda lives in all the tropics. Paraguayan respectively in Paraguay, as well as Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and northern Bolivia. Deshauer has only been seen in northern Brazil. And the subspecies Eunectes beniensis lives only in the tropics of Bolivia.

Anacondas prefer swamps, enclosed bodies of water, or calm wide rivers. Snakes do not like a strong current; they prefer calmness to match their character. They can swim and stay under water for a long time. The structure of the nostrils includes special valves to block the flow of moisture into the respiratory tract.

Anacondas can dry on the shore or trees in the open sun, but they need moisture, they make sure that they are near a body of water. The rough surface of the belly in the form of scales helps them move on land. A powerful muscular body uses the friction of the outer cover and, thus, bending in every possible way, moves quickly.

If the reservoirs dry up, the snake cannot exist normally. To survive difficult times, she buries herself in the bottom of the former swamp, in silt and slush, and can become numb until better times.

What does the anaconda eat?

Thanks to the complex structure of the jaws and pharynx, equipped with elastic ligaments, the anaconda is able to swallow prey larger than it is. However, this is not always easy, and prey of such dimensions will not go into the mouth on its own. It happens the other way around - when trying to attack, for example, she herself becomes a victim. But the fact remains.

Nevertheless, the basis of the diet of the anaconda is made up of smaller living creatures, namely:

• small mammals (, capybaras, agoutis, even sheep and dogs near the territory Agriculture may become its prey);
• reptiles (frogs, iguanas, lizards);
• turtles;
• waterfowl;
• their own kind (pythons, and even smaller anacondas themselves);
• fish on rare occasions.

The hunt goes like this: the anaconda lurks in the water and watches the potential prey. Her eyes do not blink, for which people interpret her gaze as a process of hypnosis. At the right moment, the anaconda pounces on the victim with the whole body at once, without even using its teeth. Her body is squeezing chest animal, not allowing it to breathe, and can also break its bones.

Then she simply swallows her prey whole and digests it. Now she does not need to worry about her food for a week, or even months in advance. She will gradually be saturated and receive nutrients, slowly digesting the contents of the stomach in a passive lying position. Stomach acids are so strong that even bones are digested. The next time the anaconda wants to dine will not be soon.

Having such a powerful body, they absolutely do not need poison, because they are always able to crush a victim commensurate with themselves and without fatal bites. Also among the anacondas, cases of cannibalism are common.

Features of character and lifestyle

The nature of anacondas is very apathetic. They can lie for hours without moving at all. Sometimes it seems that they are not alive at all. Probably, in the wild, this is exactly what the calculation was made for, the anaconda merges with the environment and no one touches it. Like all snakes, anacondas periodically undergo molting. Then they need to make auxiliary movements. They curl and rub against the bottom and stones in the pond. The rind peels off entirely, is removed like a stocking and remains in the water. The renewed snake continues its life in a new skin.

Anacondas cannot exist without moisture. Of course, it happens that they crawl out to lie in the sun or wrap around a tree trunk, but soon they calmly return to their familiar environment. If the snakes see that their pond is drying up, then they are looking for another one. Often they follow the current to greater depths of the rivers. During the drought period, anacondas burrow into the mud, looking for a cooler place with plenty of water. There they can go into a torpor for months before the rains come and the rivers fill.

Anacondas are so quiet animals that if you do not look for them specifically, you may not find them. Perhaps that is why they were singled out in separate view only at the end of the 20th century. From the sounds they make only a faint hiss. The lifespan of anacondas is not exactly known. They have been shown to have a low survival rate in captivity. Terrariums are able to keep anacondas alive for 5 to 6 years. It is clear that in the natural habitat this period is longer, but it is not clear by how much.

For example, the record lifespan of an anaconda in captivity has been recorded at 28 years. Again, it is unlikely that an individual is able to survive all natural disasters without consequences, and, probably, somewhere in the range of these data is average duration life of this species.

Social structure and reproduction

Anacondas lead a solitary lifestyle, they do not contact each other. Moreover, they can attack and eat their relative if he is inferior to them in size. Only during the mating season do they begin to treat each other with indifference.

Males start chasing females. They are easy to find by the fetid trail that they leave on purpose when they feel ready to mate. Often several contenders crawl for one female at once. The males start fighting each other. They wrap around and squeeze the opponent, intertwine into a ball. Unable to withstand pressure, it is soon removed. The advantage, as a rule, is with larger males. The winner gets the opportunity to mate with the female.

The gestation period lasts about six months. During this time, the female almost does not move and does not eat anything. She loses a lot of weight, it happens to be reduced by half. Anacondas are ovoviviparous reptiles. The cubs hatch from eggs while still in the womb and crawl out as kites, about half a meter long. There are 30-50 of these in one litter. Little snakes are ready for independent existence. Few manage to survive. While they are small, they are very vulnerable to other animals and even other older anacondas.

Natural enemies of the anaconda

An adult anaconda has very few enemies among the animals living around. Few can match her strength. Even crocodiles, far from always attacking an anaconda, can overcome it. The danger to these creatures threatens more in childhood, while they are not yet so strong. First of all, older anacondas or pythons can eat them. And they can easily deal with them. But if the anaconda succeeds, despite all the difficulties of a child's life, to become an adult, few people will interfere with her to exist peacefully.

For adult anacondas, only people are of great danger. Indians hunters kill them with the help of various tools. There are no failures. If a person wants to get himself a dead snake, he will do it. They are mined mainly for their meat. This dish is very popular in South America. It is eaten by both locals and visiting tourists. It is tender and sweetish in taste, many people like it very much. The snake skin is also very valuable. It is used for fashion clothes and accessories. Snake skin is used by designers in furniture decoration and for various kinds of decor.

Population and species status

Anacondas need such habitat conditions that a person approaches quite rarely. It is very difficult to conduct expeditions in the jungle, to explore the reservoirs and their contents. Therefore, it is problematic to estimate even approximately the number of anaconda individuals.

The extraction of anacondas for the zoo is always successful, it is always possible to find the right number of individuals. hunting for anacondas local residents does not stop and does not cause difficulties, therefore, their numbers are quite dense. Near agriculture, there are cases of anaconda attacks on livestock, which also indicates their stable multitude.

Of course, much is not written about anacondas in the red book, in protected status indicated - "the threat was not assessed." Nevertheless, experts believe that this species is out of danger and has everything the necessary conditions for comfortable existence and reproduction. This is true - rainforests, jungles and swamps are the least susceptible to human invasion, development, tourism development and environmental pollution. Therefore, the factors that interfere with the normal life of anacondas will not reach these places so soon. Anaconda can live in peace, its population is not yet threatened.

The famous giant snakes! They grow to incredible sizes. These are strong powerful creatures, deadly giants, ruthless and insatiable.

Ancient legends tell of giant snakes capable of swallowing an adult human whole. Today, thanks to the existing huge snakes, the myth is turning into reality.

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 representative of boas about 9 meters long and weighing 130 kg lives in the New York Zoological Society.

Another representative of the huge reptiles is the reticulated python. Its length is 12.2 m, and its weight is 2 centners. He lives now in the Japanese Zoological Garden.

Of the poisonous snakes, the king cobra is considered the largest, reaching up to 5.5 m in length. Its habitat is India, Indochina and South China. The bite of a cobra is so poisonous that the death of a person occurs within a few minutes.

Anaconda is a super predator!

Anaconda of South America is the largest snake in the world of the boa family. At a meeting with her, a person’s blood turns cold and fear paralyzes the members. The strong writhing body of the snake is capable of strangling anyone who stands in its way, even an adult bull. And no wonder, the longest snake in the world can be compared to a bus. Her weight, in some cases, reaches the mass of three adult men.

Both cunning, cunning, and size, combined with the way they move, enhance their eerie mystical charm.

But today scientists are learning more and more about it. mysterious creature.

Habitat and general characteristics of giants

Large anacondas always stay close to water, live in lakes, rivers, canals and channels that make up the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in South America, as well as on the island of Trinidad.

Savanna Llanos, in Central Venezuela, with its lagoons and swamps, is an ideal habitat for anacondas. them here large quantity than anywhere else. The climate of the area is such that there is a drought for half a year, followed by a half-year period of rains.

In most snake species, females are larger than males, but anacondas show one of the most significant sex differences between females and males among land vertebrates.

A large adult female snake can reach 6 m in length and weigh over 100 kg, having a girth of 30 cm. Males, by contrast, remain much smaller and thinner than females.

Like human fingerprints, the scale pattern on the underside of the tail is unique to each individual. This pattern, with which anacondas are born, remains unchanged.

Like other snakes, anacondas are cold-blooded creatures; are ectotherms. They cannot generate their own heat, but are forced to look for it in environment. Therefore, they are constantly in search of places with the right temperature of 25-27 ° C. They seek warmth when they need it and avoid it when it gets too hot.

Wonderful hunters without teeth and claws

Anacondas tend to kill their victims by squeezing them tightly. So much so that the blood does not flow into the heart. The heart stops beating, circulation stops, and the animal dies very quickly.

As soon as the snake begins to swallow prey, it becomes very vulnerable, since its main weapon is occupied. This process can take up to 6 hours depending on the amount of production.

Before the mating season, females must build up enough fat to carry offspring, since during pregnancy they do not eat for 7 months or more.

Even a turtle can become a victim, the shell of which perfectly dissolves the gastric juice of the strongest aggressive concentration. It is characteristic that after defecation there is no evidence left, all the bones are digested.

Anacondas eat various animals, ranging from small birds to large animals. The snake rarely loses in a fight, but the sharp teeth and claws of the victim can decide the outcome not in favor of the predator.

When snakes want to gain weight, especially before the mating season, they have to eat big booty: capybaras, caimans and deer. All these animals know how to stand up for themselves, and sometimes they inflict mortal wounds on the snake. When a snake is having lunch, the food often tries to bite off a piece for itself.

Unlike other predators, the giant snake swallows its food whole. But to compensate for the lack of limbs, the anaconda, like most snakes, has become a predator with a unique ability to adapt. The sides of the jaws are not connected in one place, which allows them to swallow any prey.

Despite the absence of such weapons as claws, snakes are skilled hunters. They use a number of complex tricks to survive in a hostile environment. The quite harmless appearance of a forked tongue inspires fear in most people. And some are even convinced that a snake can sting with its tongue. But this highly sensitive organ is vital for any snake to navigate its world.

With each protrusion of the tongue, the snake scans what is around. Both on land and under water, the chemical analysis of particles is carried out with the help of the tongue, which enters the brain through two holes in the sky, leading to the so-called Jacobson's organ. This is why snakes have forked tongues.

The absence of eyelids on the eyes also gives the snakes a mystery. But what exactly they see, and how they do it, is still a mystery to scientists. No wonder snakes, especially anacondas, are surrounded by myths and legends. There has always been something curious and unknown about them, but thanks to new technologies, science is gradually revealing some of their secrets.

reproduction

Anacondas mate before the drought period, when the humidity is not as high as during the rainy season. The male wraps around the female so that outwardly it looks like spiral spaghetti. Moreover, the expression "group sex" quite accurately characterizes the mating of anacondas, since many males wrap around the female at the same time.

They scratch at her skin with hip spurs, a primitive appendage inherited from the ancestors of lizards. This is the courtship phase, lasting up to 6 weeks, when the males are trying to figure out who can stay near the female. For all this time the snakes are wasting great amount energy. They don't eat, they don't hunt, they just groom and mate. This is an amazing ritual!

Despite the inequality, there are no conflicts between males. This is a duel of perseverance and patience.

When fertilization has occurred, the tangle disintegrates. Males and females go each in their own direction.

New life

In seven months, the anaconda will give birth to 20 to 60 live cubs.

The mother does not feed during pregnancy because she is vulnerable to predators. Therefore, the months of pregnancy are stressful for the snake. By the beginning of childbirth, the mother will simply “die” of hunger.

Newborns reach up to 60 cm in length and from the very first breath they have to take care of themselves. Females do not feed their young.

Cubs are born with the ability to swim, and with all the skills necessary for survival. But they still have a chance to die. If predators practically do not hunt adult anacondas, then newborns are extremely vulnerable to any threat: from caimans and birds to wild cats, ocelots and jaguars.

By reaching sexual maturity, after 8 years, the anaconda weighs 500 times more than at birth. These growth rates are significantly higher than those of other snake species.

Not many baby anacondas will survive the first year of life. Snakes don't win numbers competitions. Sayings “Like a snake in the grass”, “He has a tongue like a snake”, “Snake is a snake” reinforce the negative image of snakes as dangerous and evil creatures.

Therefore, the main enemy of the anaconda is man. These mystical giants are slaughtered for beautiful skin and for the production of medicines.

They are now recognized by scientists as an endangered species.

Two Brazilian fishermen claim that they managed to meet and film the largest anaconda in the world.

At first, the men mistook the snake for a huge log floating along the river, but approaching it on a boat, they realized that it was a terrible anaconda, about 9 meters in length.

Officially, it is believed that the largest anaconda at 9 meters and weighing about 130 kilograms lives in the New York Zoological Society, but there is evidence that even 11-meter boas are found in the wild.

Video: World's largest anaconda filmed in Brazil

We also invite you to take a look at the unique photographs taken by the Swiss extreme photographer Franco Banfi (also in Brazil), who ventured to the bottom of the Amazon and took pictures of anacondas in their natural habitat, that is, under water.

Note that anacondas inhabit almost the entire tropical part of South America, but they are also found in some other places, for example, on the island of Trinidad. An adult anaconda has practically no enemies in nature, it lives for a maximum of about thirty years, in captivity - much less, and the snake takes root in terrariums with great difficulty.

This boa constrictor feeds on all kinds of mammals and birds, it can even catch and eat a jaguar, there have been cases of anaconda attacks on humans. However, this huge snake gained its fame as a devourer of people only thanks to Hollywood thrillers. Reliable cases when people died from it can be counted on the fingers.

And one more misconception: for some reason, it is believed that the anaconda crushes its prey, breaking even its bones, but in fact the snake simply squeezes the mammal that has come across and does not allow it to breathe. And when the victim dies of suffocation, swallows it whole. An anaconda can also attack other snakes, for example, a case was officially recorded when this terrible boa swallowed a 2.5-meter python.