The giant anaconda, the largest of all the New World snakes, is related to the boas and the pythons. Although it is not the longest snake in the world, its girth exceeds that of most of the Biodae family, making it one of the bulkiest and heaviest reptiles living today.

Anacondas are usually found in South America. They live in the humid jungles looking for prey. Giant anacondas are rumored to grow 33 feet long at the very least, but this is pure fiction; it just wouldn't do for sensation-seeking 'explorers' to confess that the average length of these reptiles is less than 15 feet, with even giant specimens rarely exceeding 19 to 22 feet. Ever since the beginning of this century the New York Zoological Society has been offered a $5000 reward to anyone who can show them an anaconda 30 feet long. The offer still stands. No one has ever found such a monster. A species of anaconda that is smaller is found in Paraguay.

Anacondas are, if anything, aquatic rather than amphibious in habit. They spend most of their life half or wholly immersed in water and are usually found in tracts of swamp or at a short remove from the many rivers of the Amazon basin. They live on a wide assortment of animals, though capybaras, pacas and small deer form a substantial part of their diet. They strangle their prey, as boas and pythons do, by squeezing it in their coils until it is dead, after which they relax their stranglehold. An anaconda's upper jaw is attached to the lower ligaments which are so elastic that they stretch sufficiently to allow very bulky items, for example, items much bigger than the width of the snake's body, to pass into the esophagus.

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