Out of nowhere, our beloved one-year-old Harpy Eagle Elpis chick appeared! Just as we approached the Anaconda with a group of guests, Elpis showed up, perching a few meters above our heads. Photographers Paul Rosolie and Trevor Frost had come to the lodge in search of the Anaconda, which was already digesting an apparent Agouti (according to the shape and size of the lump in the snake's belly).īut amazingly, the Anaconda wasn't the only great predator lurking in the forest. The snake had snatched its prey nearby, and was digesting it! When I found it there, the first thing that came to my mind was, “this beauty deserves a picture." Excited with the incredible animal, I published the picture on social media, so everyone could marvel at it like I did.īecause of my social media posts, some well-known National Geographic Magazine photographers came here as well - looking for wild Green Anacondas as part of a photographic and research project. But even within this stimulating environment, one day, something truly stood out: an event that I will remember for the rest of my life.Īs I walked through the jungle near the Mammal Clay Lick ( Colpa), an area that attracts animals due to its nutrient-rich clay, I came across a Green Anaconda resting on the water. In this job, no two days are the same, so it's hard to fall into monotony. The Tambopata jungle of Southeastern Peru hosts a great diversity of landscapes, ecosystems and organisms, giving me the opportunity to easily spot scores of plants and animals. Since my first day on the Wired Amazon research team, my hours have been filled with surprises and new experiences. While I knew I'd discover spectacular wildlife, I never expected to encounter two of the jungle's greatest predators together: the Harpy Eagle Elpis and the Green Anaconda! This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.As a fascinated newcomer to this part of the Amazon jungle, I'd like to tell you about my experience here at Rainforest Expeditions' Refugio Amazonas lodge. In Photos: The World's 10 Deadliest AnimalsĬopyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. "It probably could have kept that goat down had it not been disturbed."įollow LiveScience on Twitter. "People might have pushed into view for a better film, might have dragged it by the tail," Indiviglio said. The setting shows much less-dense vegetation than is typical in the Amazon jungle, suggesting it lies near a human settlement such as a village. In fact, the people recording the YouTube video may have prompted the anaconda to vomit up the goat, Indiviglio speculates. As a result, at the first hint of danger anacondas regurgitate their meals in order to hide, fight or run. The massive effort of digesting a meal makes the snakes slow and heavy. "After a big meal, they've just got to crawl off, find a sunny warm place and sit there for weeks," he said. Once the giant constrictors like this anaconda swallow a meal, their internal organs shrink to make room for the huge mass of food, and their powerful digestive enzymes spend weeks breaking down everything but hip bones, hooves and fur. Because their big meals incapacitate them, the snakes sometimes have to vomit in order to escape dangers. The vomiting shown in the YouTube video occurs relatively commonly, Indiviglio said. "They don't suffocate easily, like a mammal." "That took the animal all day to kill," Indiviglio said. Indiviglio has even seen an anaconda swallow a 5-foot-long Caiman crocodile. Besides, anacondas can't eat an entire, full-grown cow: the largest animal documented to have been consumed by a constrictor is a 130-pound (59-kilogram) impala, eaten by an African rock python in 1955.Īnd contrary to some early speculation, the regurgitated animal's coloring doesn't match the brownish gray coat of the capybara, a South American rodent that can grow up to 150 pounds (66 kg), Indiviglio said. The animal in the video is too small to be anything but a baby cow, though, and is more likely a much smaller mammal - a goat, said Frank Indiviglio, a former herpetologist with the Bronx Zoo who currently writes at ThatReptileBlog. The video shows an anaconda in the Brazilian Amazon regurgitating the intact carcass of a brown-and-white–spotted mammal, and was originally posted under the title "Giant Anaconda Regurgitates a Whole Cow." A YouTube video of an anaconda allegedly disgorging a cow became an overnight sensation, but the unlucky animal was probably a much less impressive goat, one expert says.
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