![]() ![]() ![]() If measured in the field and not collected, then it is the credibility of the informant that determines whether a record is accepted, since there is no specimen. Generally, claims about the size of animals are based on actual museum specimens, but for giant snakes these are only skins, which are unreliable due to stretching. ANACONDA LENGTH SKINA few cases of comparing the size of the snake and its skin have been reported, and the skin is about 20% longer than the snake. Now make its length more than 4 times your height! But if you collect the snake, the only practical way of preserving the specimen is as a skin, and skins notoriously stretch. They won’t sit still, keep curving, and might bite you. But once you find one, how do you measure it? It is very hard to measure a live snake– I know from experience. ![]() Now there are several problems with knowing the maximum size of a species of large snake, beginning with the fact that the biggest snakes will probably be rare. You can see that the authorities disagree, with reticulated pythons being generally credited with a length of 32-33 feet (= 10 m the Bronx Zoo lengths are of specific animals, not the largest ever), while anacondas are either 30 feet (or less) or 11.5 m. The two species vie for the title of world’s largest snake: the anaconda is unquestionably heavier bodied than the slimmer reticulated python but which gets longer? I’ve compiled a few judgments from the respectable literature immediately available to me. This question is intimately tied up with the question of how big reticulated pythons ( Python reticulatus) get. Heuvelmans also credulously records reports of 130 foot long anacondas, which he supposes might be an unknown species, distinct from the anaconda. The account of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer is well known, having been featured in Bernard Heuvelmans’ work, and illustrated by his son, Brian it was supposed to be 62 feet long. There are many stories of huge anacondas. If the exact location could be determined, and the width of the stream measured, that could provide a basis for an estimate (although the shore is pretty featureless, and stream width could vary widely over time depending on seasonal rainfall patterns). It’s a big snake, but it’s hard to tell how big it is– there are no items of known size to compare it to. ![]()
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