Just weeks after making her public debut, one of the world’s largest snakes – a new species of giant anaconda – has been found dead in the Amazon rainforest.
The tragic news was shared earlier this week by Professor Freek Vonk on Instagram, who said: “With enormous pain in my heart I want to let you know that the mighty big green anaconda I swam with was found dead in the river this weekend.”
Vonk, a biologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who was part of the team that recently discovered the new species of gigantic anaconda in the Brazilian Amazon while filming for National Geographic’s Disney+ series Pole to Pole with Will Smith, initially suggested the giant snake had been shot dead, but he later retracted that claim and said the death was being investigated.
“The latest news out of Brazil is that authorities have not yet found any evidence that this beautiful green anaconda was shot dead. The cause of death is currently still being investigated, considering all possible options. So, it’s also possible that she died a natural death,” he added in a follow-up post.
He also shared an incredible video of him swimming with the snake, which had been nicknamed Ana Julia. “The fact that I got to spend over an hour with her at the bottom of the river remains one of my most breathtaking experiences in nature – and one I will never forget!” he noted.
After her death, it was revealed the individual was likely to be around 7 meters (nearly 23 feet) long, which is exceptionally lengthy for any species of snake.
However, she is not the longest on record. The longest snake ever officially measured was a captive reticulated python called Medusa, which clocked in at 7.67 meters (25 feet, 2 inches) long, according to Guinness World Records.
The expedition to the Amazon was partially inspired by anecdotal reports from the Indigenous Waorani people that spoke of anacondas measuring more than 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) long and weighing over 500 kilograms (1,110 pounds).
Their research helped to reveal that the green anaconda – the largest and heaviest (although not longest) snake species on Earth – was actually two separate species: the northern green anaconda and the southern green anaconda.
Describing the new species in the journal Diversity, the researchers say it diverged from the previously known southern green anaconda about 10 million years ago and has a 5.5 percent difference in DNA.
“It’s quite significant – to put it in perspective, humans differ from chimpanzees by only about 2 percent,” Professor Bryan Fry, study author from the University of Queensland, said in a statement last month.
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