World of Mystery

Anacondas have fascinated people for a long time. They are reportedly the largest and the heaviest snake in the world, growing as much as thirty feet long and a quarter of a ton in weight. The natural habitat of the anaconda is the northern and the amazonian South America, east of Andes.

Now we come to the main subject of the article, how long can an anaconda really grow? Proven real-life evidence indicates a length of about thirty feet. However, sightings of anacondas much larger in size abound across the accounts of many adventurers throughout the world. This is where the Giant Anacondas come in. One of the most prominent account of Giant Anaconda sighting came from Percy H. Fawcett.

Mr. Fawcett was commissioned by Royal Geographic Society to survey the region around the Rio Abuna and Acre rivers, in 1906. His account mentions an encounter with an anaconda supposedly about 62 feet in length and a foot wide. Unfortunately, he was not able to bring the carcass back. This account is usually dismissed by the zoologists since there is no firsthand proof of the existence of the snake. Moreover, the length to width ratio of the snake sounds wrong also (a 62 feet long snake is supposed to be much wider than a feet across).

Another famous account of giant anaconda came from Barnard Heuvelmans, author of On The Track Of Unknown Animals. He saw a giant anaconda during an expedition with a group of Frenchmen and Brazilians. He described the encounter as follows:

"When we walked around the whole length of its body it seemed like it would never end. What struck me was its enormous head, a triangle about 24 inches by 20. We had no instruments to measure the beast, but we took an arms length of string and measured it about one meter by placing it on a man's shoulder and extending it to his fingertips. We measured the snake several times and each time we got a length of 25 strings. The creature was well over 23 meters (75 feet) long."

Again, he was not able to provide tangible evidence of the serpent. In 1959, a Belgian helicopter pilot also photographed a giant snake on the Congo floor, which he claimed to be in between 40 to 50 feet in length. However, the photograph provided no evidence related to scale, making for another futile attempt.

A few real facts:

Guinness Book of World Records recognizes the Reticulated Python caught on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in 1912 as the longest snake in the world ever at 39.4 feet. The second place goes to an African Rock Python shot on the Ivory Coast in 1932 at 38.3 feet. The world has yet to see a real world evidence of an anaconda in excess of 35 feet in length.

Final words:

Many people have claimed anaconda specimens longer than 40 feet in length. Some even claims to have seen anacondas as long as 120 feet in length. Unfortunately, most lack real life evidence. No one has ever been able to provide an acceptable documentation either. So, the Giant Anaconda still remains a creature of legends, better known as a cryptid.

Thank you

Shampad Momin

Sources:

True Authority.com

Microsoft Encarta Online

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