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Largest snake in the world: Researchers discover new species of anaconda
An excerpt from the video shows the researcher with the anaconda
© Imago Images
Biologist Freek Vonk posted an Instagram video of himself swimming next to a giant snake. He himself describes the animal as a “monster” and says it is the largest anaconda he has ever seen.
This article first appeared at ntv.de
The self-described “best-known biologist in the Netherlands”, Freek Vonk from the University of Amsterdam, has on Instagram posted a spectacular video. Anyone who is afraid of snakes might not like the footage too much, as Vonk swims side by side with a gigantic snake in the clip. The biologist writes about the video that it is a new species of green anaconda. She is said to weigh over 200 kilos. “The biggest anaconda I’ve ever seen. A monster.”
Instagram video shows diver with anaconda
“We discovered that the largest snake species in the world, the green anaconda, is actually made up of two different species,” says Vonk. “The green anacondas, which occur in the north of their range in South America, seembelonging to a completely different species. Although they look almost identical, the genetic difference between the two species is 5.5 percent, which is huge. For comparison: humans and chimpanzees only differ genetically by about 2 percent.” The new species was given the Latin name Eunectes akayima, the “northern green anaconda.”
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