Like most snakes, anacondas have four rows of teeth on their upper jaws.įour parallel lines of backwards-pointing teeth help serpents grasp their prey and swallow it whole. Despite their enormous size and strength, anacondas often sustain significant injuries while hunting caimans. The numerous species of caiman range in length from about 5 feet to 13 feet, making them formidable prey for anacondas. Green anacondas won’t say no to snacking on other big reptiles.Ĭaimans are alligator-like aquatic reptiles native to South American rivers. Capybaras frequently weigh up to 140 pounds and constitute one of the snakes’ chief meals. They’ll even consume animals as large as peccaries (a type of wild pig), tapirs, deer, and sheep. Green anacondas will eat almost anything, including birds and their eggs, other reptiles and amphibians, fish, and mammals. Then, they lunge, catch the prey in their jaws, and wind their incredibly muscular bodies around the animal until it suffocates or dies from being crushed. Instead, the lie in wait for an unsuspecting mammal, fish, or amphibian to wander within reach. Like other boas, anacondas lack venom with which to neutralize their prey. Large anacondas often weigh more than 200 pounds, but the longest snake on Earth is the reticulated python ( Python reticulatus). The green anaconda is the world’s heaviest snake, but not the longest. Green anacondas may be on there way to becoming established as an invasive species in parts of southern Florida like its boa cousin, the Burmese python. The biggest and best known are the green anacondas, which live live in wetlands and river basins through tropical South America, including parts of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. beniensis), and the dark-spotted anaconda ( E. There are four species of anaconda today: Green anacondas ( Eunectes murinus), yellow anacondas ( E. Anacondas are members of the boa family.Īnacondas belong to Boinae, the family of large, non-venomous snakes collectively called boas. Read on for more gripping facts about these massive snakes. But you may not know that they give birth to live young and can stay underwater for up to 10 minutes on a single breath. Most people know that green anacondas are huge.

Biggest anaconda