The size of the Anaconda (Eunectes murinus)

[GuateGojira]

The "bible" of anacondas:

Dr Jesús Rivas is by far, the best expert on anacondas in the world. He have published several documents about they behavior and have captured more specimens than anyone in the world. I had talk (via email) with him and he is a great person and a excellence scientist. Here is the OFFICIAL page from this amazing scientist and naturalist: http://www.anacondas.org/

His greatest work is his thesis named "Rivas, J. A. 2000. Life history of the green anacondas with emphasis on its conservation Biology." In this work, he summarize the data of several years of study on this animal. Obviously new documents has been since that time, but if you want to know about the REAL anaconda, you MOST read this paper. Just like Schaller book (The deer and the tiger) was like the "bible" for tiger conservation, this document of Dr Rivas apply for this name, although this time for anacondas.

About the size, this thesis presents what is the best and most complete table about the size of this magnificent animal, summarizing the data of 780 specimens captured for 7 years. If this sample is not conclusive, I don't know what it is. Check it out:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Source: http://www.anacondas.org/diss/disser.pdf

This table states that the largest anaconda was a female of 521 cm and 97.5 kg. However, in a document of 1995, Dr Rivas mentioned another female of 530 cm and 82.5 kg. He told me that this were two different animals. Why he don't put it in the table of 2000? I don't know, but he corroborated the different specimens so I included in my table for future references. Here is the document of 1995 with that long specimen:
http://www.anacondas.org/bozal.pdf

Finally, like is the tradition, here is the picture of the 97.5 kg anaconda:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The guy in the picture is Frank Indiviglio, another Biologist that works in Los Llanos, Venezuela.

In my next post, the record Guinness will be presented here.

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Record Guinness:

Here are the pages about the anaconda and other giant snakes, from the book "Animal facts and feats" from 1978, or Gerard Wood:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

This last is not in the list of records, but is a huge snake of 781 cm that eaten a peccary:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I will prepare an analysis of these records (those that I believe are reliable and those that no), but for the moment, this is the raw data.

Until tomorrow, greetings to all. :)

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