Member of the boa family, South America’s green anaconda is, pound for pound, the largest snake in the world. Although the reticulated python can reach slightly greater lengths, the enormous girth of the anaconda makes it almost twice as heavy.
Green anacondas typically grow to around 20 feet (6 meters) in length and weigh around 330 lbs (149 kgs). However, they can grow to more than 30 feet (9 meters) in length, weigh over 500 lbs (226 kgs), and measure 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter. Females are significantly larger than males and green anacondas exhibit the greatest size difference between the sexes of any terrestrial vertebrate. Other anaconda species, all from South America and all smaller than the green anaconda, are the yellow, dark-spotted, and Bolivian varieties.
As the name suggests, the green anaconda is olive green in colour, and contains black smudges running across the entire length of its body. The head of the green anaconda snake is narrower than the rest of its body and is characterized by a distinctive orange-yellow striping on either side. Apart from the above mentioned physical features, the green anacondas also have scales. There are claw-like spurs located on either side of the cloaca (the cavity into which the genito-urinary and digestive tracts of the anaconda snakes empty). This is the only region of the green anaconda snake’s body that does not have scales, and which emits a musk with a foul odour that is poisonous to small organisms. Perhaps this is a mode whereby the green anaconda snake prevents leeches and ticks from attaching themselves to its cloaca. Analogous with the fingerprint of a human, the pattern of scales found along the yellow and black underside of the lower tail of the green anacondas is unique to each anaconda snake.
Green anacondas dwell mainly in the marshes and swamps in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of northern South America. They are cumbersome on land, but stealthy and sleek in the water. Their eyes and nasal openings are on top of their heads, allowing them to lay in wait for prey while remaining nearly completely submerged.
They reach their monumental size on a diet of wild pigs, deer, birds, turtles, capybara, caimans, and even jaguars. Anacondas are nonvenomous constrictors, coiling their muscular bodies around captured prey and squeezing until the animal asphyxiates. Jaws attached by stretchy ligaments allow them to swallow their prey whole, no matter the size, and they can go weeks or months without food after a big meal.
Green anacondas are ‘ovoviviparous,’ which means that the females carry the eggs within their bodies until the babies are ready to hatch. Females give birth to two to three dozen live young. Baby snakes are about 2 feet (0.6 meters) long when they are born and are almost immediately able to swim and hunt. From birth to adulthood, the green anaconda undergoes a dramatic 500-fold increase in mass, a greater increase than any other snake species. Their lifespan in the wild is about ten years.
Green anacondas continue to interest and amaze people the world over but they face a number of threats, which could have a significant impact on their population. They are hunted, both legally and illegally, in many parts of its range for its skins and for sale in the growing, illegal pet trade. They are also the victims of human prejudice and ignorance. Local people kill thousands of anacondas every year under the pretext of protecting livestock, pets or even people. However, in many cases, a widespread fear and dislike of snakes results in individuals of this species being persecuted, even when found in remote areas. Habitat loss and degradation are also threatening this species, and even in areas where habitat protection exists, a lack of enforcement is allowing illegal deforestation to occur.
The Andes Mountain Range runs the length of Western South America, making it the longest range on Earth. Along the length of the range lies the preferred habitat of the largest flying land bird in the world, a scavenger of the New World vulture family, called the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus). These birds are absolutely massive, and, though rare, may be seen soaring the thermals in the upper reaches of the mountains, and high above canyons trying to catch the scent of carrion, their sole food.
The Jaguar (Panthera onca) is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar’s present range extends from Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson), the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 1900s. The Amazon Rainforest remains the key stronghold for the jaguar where they thrive along riversides, lakes and streams in the dense jungle canopy.
Launched in 2007 by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, this wonderful, screen-filling, animated
The amazing mating display of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird has been filmed in full for the first time.
The diminutive spectacled bear makes its home in the dense Andean jungles of South America, and it has the distinction of being the continent’s only bear.
The Giant Anteater is the largest species of anteater. This large, hairy mammal lives in grasslands, savannas and open tropical forests in Central and South America.
An arribada (mass synchronised sea turtle nesting) is a unique nesting phenomenon common to both the Olive ridley and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. The best place to witness an arribada is Ostional beach on the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Arribadas at this beach are considered the largest in the world, with as many as a million sea turtle eggs laid in the beach nesting areas each year. Arribadas occur on a lunar cycle of approximately 28 days. The majority occur around the start of the last quarter moon; however, this event may take place at any time including the full moon, and two arribadas (first and last quarter) may occur in the same month. The size and duration of the arribadas varies between the dry and wet seasons. Those occurring in the dry season of January to April tend to be smaller (approximately 5,000 turtles) and of shorter duration (less than four days). In the wet season of May to December, up to 300,000 turtles may lay over a period of 8 to 10 days. On a number of occasions between August and October, two arribadas of 10 days each have occurred in the same month. This results in continuous activity during the month with a few days of lower activity and two peaks of maximum nesting.