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| A pet green anaconda, Eunectes murinus (Wikimedia Commons) |
September has been a
busy month for reports of giant reptiles. First a record breaking crocodile was
captured in the Philippines.
Now, YahooNews
reports that a massive 18-foot green anaconda (Eunectes murinus) was
captured by a group exploring the Rewa River in Surinam. Where are Ice Cube,
J-Lo, and Owen Wilson when you need them?
Niall McCann, a
29-year-old biologist from Wales, Robert Pickles, and their guides found the
anaconda while trekking through a section of the Rewa River never before
surveyed by scientists. They captured the snake in 2009, but didn't release
photos until recently.
"The animals
there had never seen people before so you could get incredibly close to
them," McCann told YahooNews
in an interview.
The team spotted the
sizeable serpent on the river bank, but didn't tackle it at first.
"When you first
see something of that size you just don't know how it will respond. We were
very scared, we had heard innumerable horror stories of them taking people and
killing them -- you know this is a seriously dangerous animal you are faced with,"
McCann said.
Three weeks later,
the anaconda was still in the same spot. The explorers had gained experience
catching caiman and smaller anacondas since their first encounter with the
giant, and felt confident they were up to the 18-foot long challenge.
"We spent about
20 minutes preparing the landscape so we could encourage it to move inland, we
didn't want it to go into the river as it could have escaped," McCann
said.
"It would
stretch out then coil, ready to strike, then stretch out and coil again. I
said, 'right, next time it stretches I'm going to go for it.' It started to
stretch out and I just leapt on top of it with both hands behind its head, my
knee on its back and the other chaps piled on behind me," McCann
continued.
"It was a
struggle for the first 30 seconds or so as it tried to move its head from side
to side. It tried to scratch at us then Ash, the head guide, came round the
front and grabbed it by the jaws as I lifted it up -- wrapping its jaws with
tape so it could no longer bite us," McCann said.
The snake wranglers
made sure the anaconda couldn't escape with its mouth taped, which would have
been a death sentence for an animal with no appendages. The team then measured
it and released it.
At 18 feet, the
anaconda may be one of the longest ever measured.
A 17 foot 1 inch
(521 cm ) long female that weighed 215 lb (97.5 kilograms), was documented by
Jesus Antonio Rivas in The Life History of the Green Anaconda (Eunectes
murinus), with Emphasis on its Reproductive Biology. Other reports of anacondas
reaching 24-27 feet have been reported by reliable sources.
Though rumors exist
of anacondas reaching lengths of more than 30 feet, herpetologists doubt the
accuracy of these claims.
SOURCE: DISCOVERY NEWS
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