Carroll Dean Brown, age 8, of StephensTexas, for his question:
What is an anaconda?
The anaconda coils through the branches of the dense, steamy jungles of Brazil. He claims to be the biggest snake in all the world. But he cannot prove this: A certain python strongly disagrees with the anaconda. This reticulate python of Asia also claims the title of World's Largest Snake. Look, he says, I have been properly measured by people. They tell me I am almost 33 feet long. The biggest anaconda to be properly measured was less than 28 feet long.
This, hisses the anaconda, is an unfair contest. Everyone knows that the biggest anacondas are rarely seen, let alone measured. We dwell in the wild tropical forests of South America. Travel is hard and dangerous. We rarely, if over, see a human being. And, when we do see one, he is not carrying a tape measure.
It is safe to say that there are‑anacondas larger than pythons dwelling in the jungles around the waters of the Amazon. Even careful experts admit that some of these monsters may grow to a length of 40 feet. The powerful creatures have few enemies, even in the wild bungle. And some of them live to be very old. So far, no ono has taken an accurate measurement of one of these old fellows. So the anaconda cannot prove that he is the largest snake in the world. However, he can certainly prove that he is the largest snake in the new world.
Anaconda is a handsome fellow. He wears a double row of dark dots down his smooth back. He is always gracefully curved, either twined around a branch, gliding through the grass or swimming in a stream. He is a great water snake and does much of his hunting around the rivers.
The handsome anaconda is not a poisonous snake. He has no fangs with which to infect venom into his prey. He is a boa snake and kills his prey by coiling around it. The boa does not squeeze his victim, as some people think. He winds his powerful coils around the body of an animal.
When the victim breathes out, the boa gently but firmly tightens his coils. This means that the victim cannot expand his lungs to breathe in again.
The victim faints and suffocates from lack of air. The snake then swallows him whole, head first. The big anaconda could kill a dear with his powerful coils. But an animal so large would be too big for the snake to swallow; So the anaconda contents himself with small game he finds in the trees and by the water.
Boa snakes do not lay eggs. And Mama Anaconda is a boa. She gives birth to live babies. A beautiful anaconda was once caught and sent to New York. She was 19 feet long and weighed 236 pounds ‑ which was very heavy for her length. But she was an expectant mama, all rowdy to bear a brood of little ones. The babies were all three feet two inches long and there were 72 of them.