The world’s largest snake has been discovered slithering loudly and terrifyingly about the Amazon rainforest. The exceptionally large Northern Green Anaconda weighs 200kg and measures 8m in length, which is about the same length as two badly parked Volkswagens but not as heavy or tall. However, it does have a head as large as a human’s, and its body is as thick as a car tire (as found on Volkswagens). It was discovered by the excellently named Professor Freek Vonk, who decided the appropriate course of action upon finding it was to swim with it, which goes against the advice of all those movies, but oh well. The Northern Green Anaconda is a newly discovered type of Giant Anaconda, as was revealed this month in a paper in the journal Diversity. The study’s lead author, the equally excellent named Dr Jesus Rivas, spent over 15 years cataloging genetic samples of the biggest of the big snakes on a hunch that there was more than one species, and he was right. Despite being unknown to humans until last month, Professor Vonk insists they are already under threat from climate change.
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