Researchers in the Amazon jungle have discovered the largest species of snake in the world – a huge green anaconda, Reuters reports.
According to People magazine, the exciting discovery was made in the tropical forests of Ecuador, during filming of a popular science series of National Geographic with Will Smith.
A video circulating online shows the scale of these 6.1 meter long reptiles, while one of the researchers, the Dutch biologist Freek Vonk, swims up to a giant specimen weighing 200 kilograms.
Until now, it was believed that only one species of green anaconda existed in the wild – Eunectes murinus. However, earlier this month the scientific journal Diversity revealed that the new “northern green anaconda” belongs to a different, new species – Eunectes akiyama.
“We had to use the anacondas as a proxy species for the damage caused by the Yasuní oil spill in Ecuador, because oil production is completely out of control,” explained researcher Brian G. Fry.
Source: YouTube/Screenshot
Fry, an Australian professor of biology at the University of Queensland who has spent almost 20 years studying the species of anacondas found in South America, said the discovery allows them to show that the two species diverged from each other almost 10 million years ago.
“However, the really amazing thing is that despite this genetic difference and despite their long divergence, the two animals are completely identical,” he pointed out.
Although green anaconda snakes are very similar in appearance, they have a genetic difference of 5.5%, which is surprising to scientists.
“This is an incredibly large genetic difference, especially considering that we are only 2% different from chimpanzees,” explained Fry.
Anacondas, he says, are incredibly useful sources of information about the ecological health of an area and the potential human health impacts of oil spills in the region.
Some of the snakes studied in parts of Ecuador are heavily contaminated by oil spills, a anacondas and arapaima fish accumulate large amounts of the petrochemical metalsthe researcher added.
“This means that if arapaima fish accumulate these metals from oil spills, their consumption should be avoided by pregnant women, just as salmon and tuna are avoided in other parts of the world for fear of methylmercury,” he commented.
2024-03-01 14:39:00
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