Anacondas

Yesterday morning Ross and I watched the movie "Anaconda." It was made in 1997. At the beginning of the film, it had some very false statements about these snakes. A few include "up to 40 feet in length" and that these snakes only desire to kill things. Even if they are full after a meal, they want to hunt and will regurgitate what they have eaten to continue hunting and killing. This is completely false. I did some research and will basically do this post as a bit of information that is true about anacondas. I will compare them to the snakes in the movie. Bwahahaha!
First, there are two major snakes in the movie. There are lots of little baby snakes, but two main gigantic ones. It starts out with just a guy on a boat. Then out of nowhere, comes a freaking anaconda that is basically bored and decides that the best thing to do is to eat this guy. So it does. In my research I found that anacondas are very shy snakes. They will flee quickly if they are attacked. They are solitary creatures that are actually hard to find. They avoid boats and people.
Second, as this snake in the movie starts to eat people, it chooses Owen Wilson as lucky meal number two. After he is eaten and his girlfriend is in hysterics, the scene ends showing the anaconda swimming underneath the boat with it's belly all large from eating a man. You even get to see the expression on the guys face! Yes, it shows through the snake's entire stomach and muscles and you can see an imprint of his face on the inside of the snake. Pathetic. I don't know who came up with the idea of putting that freaking face-of-person-eaten-by-snake in the movie, but they should be shot. Yes, it is true that after a snake eats, you can see a "lump" or bulge in their body. But no, you cannot see any facial details of the eaten creature.
Third, the snake should not be following the freaking boat. These snakes have a territory that they hang out in. They do not thirst for human blood as this movie claims they do. Anacondas diet consists of fish, other snakes, deer, kangaroos, cappybaras, and caimans which are similar to alligators. But they do not people. Nor do they thirst for blood. They just eat when they're hungry. If they're not hungry, they just chill where they're at and enjoy themselves doing nothing.
Fourth, at the final scene of the movie, Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube are in an abandoned building having a battle with an anaconda. And while this is going on, John Voight who plays a maniac snake hunter, is trying to catch the snake and uses the two others as bait. Jerk face. So the snake is all slithering about in this place freaking all the people out. What is wrong with this, you ask? Anacondas are water snakes. They rarely come onto land. They spend most of their time in water. But for a fun relaxing time, they will slither up a small tree and soak in the sun.
Fifth, the snake ends up eating dear John Voight. He deserved it. But ya, the snake just snarfs him down like me eating chocolate cake. Ridiculous. Anacondas do not eat very fast. It actually takes them 6 hours to ingest a cappybara. Not to digest, to ingest. To get the freaking thing into it's stomach takes 6 hours! Very slow eaters, eh? And as John Voight was regurgitated so that the snake could continue killing and eating, I just have to add that anacondas do not regurgitate their food on purpose. Sometimes, of course, all animals regurgitate things. And anacondas don't do it just to eat more. They eat, then they stop. This picture, by the way, is of the anaconda's mouth in the movie. It is really different from what a real anaconda's mouth looks like. There's a picture of a real one a bit further down.
Number six! After regurgitating it's meal, the anaconda continues to chase JLo. She's booking it away, and the snake is just freaking slithering like a maniac and is right on her heels! Will she get away? If this film were realistic, she probably would! Mostly because the snake wouldn't be chasing her, but if it were, it would have a tough time keeping up. Anacondas are very slow snakes. To catch prey, they rely more on stealth and camaflauge to sneak up on their prey. They have to be pretty smart to plan ahead to get a meal. None of that chasing down women stuff for them.
Seven. So it's saying, and showing, throughout the movie that the anacondas are freaking ginormous. 40 feet or longer, it says. However, anacondas never get to be that long. Yes, it is true that anacondas are the biggest snakes recorded. That is due to mass, not length. The longest snake ever recorded was actually a reticulated python at 33 feet long. Anacondas can get to be that long, but it doesn't happen very often. Their mass is so large because their bodies can be extremely wide around. Sometimes even as wide as a grown man's shoulders. Crazy sauce! This one just ate a meal, so he's pretty fat.
Well, I don't really have anything else to say about anacondas other than that the movie was very silly and not very nice to these snakes. Poor guys, they're just shy. Oh, and here's the picture of what their mouth actually looks like. The teeth are angled backward so that when an anaconda bites it's prey, it can't escape. Pulling out of the mouth would only get you more stuck in it. The teeth are not poisonous. Anacondas rely on their powerful jaws and muscles to squeeze their prey to kill them. No poison involved.
If you want to go to the website that I got all this information from, it is http://www.extremescience.com/BiggestSnake.htm