GIANT ANACONDAS (Sucuriju Gigante)

GIANT ANACONDAS  (Sucuriju Gigante)

 

Although the Anaconda of the Amazon Basin is a well known species of snake, the extreme size of these creatures is unknown. According to the Indians of the Amazon, Anaconda is considerably larger than its scientifically accepted length which is disputed. The Indians tell stories about a creature called Sucuriju Gigante, Boiuna, or Cobra Grand known to be an Anaconda of aquatic habits and immense size.

“As far as it was possible to measure, a length of forty-five feet lay out of the Water, and seventeen feet in it, making it a total length of sixty-two feet.”   Percy H. Fawcett

Perhaps the most amazing report comes from Tabatinga on the River Oiapoc in the Guapore territory. In 1948, the Rio de Janeiro newspaper told of a snake that came ashore and measured an amazing one hundred and fifteen feet in length. Soldiers fired at least five hundred machine gun bullets into the beast before it was finally slain. Although the body was measured and photographed, the carcass was pushed back into the river. One imagines that the stench from the nearly immovable object would be stunning.

  The explorer Percy H. Fawcett also told of another species of snake that could be found in Araguaya and Tocantins basins, known as the Dormidera (the sleeper) from the loud snoring noise it makes, which is said to be black in variety and much larger.

The largest known snake in the world is the Anaconda, or Eunectes murinus, of  South America.  It holds the world’s official record for size with one specimen, encountered by petroleum geologist in Eastern Colombia in the 1940’s, measuring 37 ½ feet in length.  Regarding the Anaconda's length, there were many other reports based on scientists and herpetologists mentioning about its length. However, none of these reports were near the incredible length which was cited by Fawcett during his first expedition and he was neither the first nor the last one to suggest an anaconda of incredible size. 

Somewhere deep in the southern swamps do they grow bigger?

According to Colonel Percy H. Fawcett, a former British Army officer, surveyor and adventurer in the early 1900’s, they do:   

 

In 1907, Colonel Percy Fawcett was surveying the Amazon Basin for the Royal Geographical Society of London. He heard many tales of  massive snakes from the local tribes, paid them no heed. Soon, events were to prove them accurate. He and his Indian crew were slowly drifting down Rio Abuna when almost under flimsy canoe appeared a giant anaconda.

"We were drifting easily along on the sluggish current not far below the confluence of Tigor and the Rio Negro when almost under the bow there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle as the creature began to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to aim smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked head. At once there was a flurry of foam, and several heavy thumps against the boat's keel, shaking us as though we had run on a snag.."

Fawcett describes how they stopped and examined the body. Though he had no ruler, he guessed the length of the creature at sixty-two feet with a twelve-inch diameter. “Such large specimens as this may not be common, but the trails in the swamps reach a width of six feet and support the statements of Indians and rubber pickers that the anaconda sometimes reaches an incredible size dwarfing that shot by me. The Brazilian Boundary Commission told me of one exceeding eighty feet in length!”

   

The anaconda can live in fresh water and could be a candidate for some smaller sea serpent or Lake Monster reports. Like all snakes, the anaconda is carnivorous. While some snakes use venom (poison) to kill or paralyze their victims, the anaconda, like its Eastern Hemisphere cousins, pythons kill by constriction. A python, by looping its body around an animal, can use its powerful muscles to squeeze until the animal can no longer breath.

A method of how an anaconda specialist with his team could be able to capture this snake, is to walk barefoot into the swamp (this is to help feel the snake on the growth), grab the snake by the head, while the others grab the rest of the body. They then place a huge sock over the head and then tie the sock with a belt to keep it from slipping off.

The anaconda can live in fresh water and could be a candidate for some smaller sea serpent or Lake Monster reports. Like all snakes, the anaconda is carnivorous. While some snakes use venom (poison) to kill or paralyze their victims, the anaconda, like its Eastern Hemisphere cousins, pythons kill by constriction. A python, by looping its body around an animal, can use its powerful muscles to squeeze until the animal can no longer breath.

The large anacondas feed on deer, pigs, caiman (a creature that looks like a small crocodile), and fish. The snake usually wraps his extended jaws around the head of the victim and swallows working its way down to the victim’s feet. This allows the unfortunate animal’s limps to neatly fold inward rather than present an obstacle to ingestion.

Do large snakes like python and the anaconda eat people?  Occasionally such attacks are recorded in the wild. In 1972 a python in Burma ate an eight-year old boy. In 1927 there was a story about a jeweler called Maung Chit Chine. He hid under a tree during a rainstorm and afterward his friend could only find his hat and shoes. When they killed a nearby gouged python, they found the rest of Chine’s body, swallowed feet first (though this seems opposite to normal snake behavior) and whole, inside the snake.  

Jesus Rivas: Biologist with Diega (anaconda)

Strangely enough, many big snakes attack humans not in the jungle, but in suburbia. Pythons are often kept as pets, but can turn deadly without warning. In 1993 in Colorado, a 15-year old boy weighing 95 pounds was attacked by the family’s python. The snake was only a medium size being 11 feet long and weighing 53 pounds yet was able to kill the boy, though it made no attempt to eat him. 

Cartoonist Gary Larson, of The Far Side, also had a close call with a Burmese python he had raised from a baby. According to Larson he realized he was “living with a gigantic predator with a very small brain” one day when it tried to do him in.