World's Biggest Snake! 24-Foot, 440-Pound Anaconda Found in Amazon

Biologist and TV wildlife presenter Professor Freek Vonk (yes, really) has presented us with something sure to send chills up the spine of anyone who isn't a fan of legless reptiles: A 24-foot, 440-pound Green Anaconda with a head as big as a human's. This is a snake that could swallow a grown man. Yipes!

The world's largest snake has been discovered in the Amazon Rainforest - and at 26ft long and weighing 440lbs, it's an absolute whopper.
The Northern Green Anaconda was found by TV wildlife presenter, Professor Freek Vonk, and is as thick as a car tyre.
Despite having a head the size of a human's, it seems Professor Vonk, 40, wasn't scared of getting up close and personal with the snake.
Incredible footage shows the Dutch biologist swimming next to the enormous anaconda.

Yipes! I'm not a small guy and have a greater-than-average experience level of dealing with animals, but there is no amount of money in the world that would get me in that black muddy river with that snake. Anacondas prey on some good-sized critters, including the capybara, which can grow to over a hundred pounds, very near human-sized.

The Green Anaconda is the world's largest snake - at the moment. In the past, there have been much larger snakes, including the 40-foot Titanboa.

Interestingly, people in the Amazon basin live with critters like this, but people live with all manner of potentially dangerous wildlife - and potentially dangerous domestic animals - everywhere that humans live.

Alaska Teen Suffers Minor Injuries in Moose Attack: Moose, Not So Lucky

There are no snakes in Alaska; there are no reptiles of any kind, actually, except some sea turtles occasionally found in some of our coastal waters. But when I was a young man in Allamakee County, we had several varieties of snakes, and I handled a lot of them.

While I've never handled a snake as big as this - nor even a boa or other large constrictor - I've handled plenty of poisonous snakes, including timber rattlesnakes, massasaugas, and prairie rattlers when I was a young fellow back in northeast Iowa. When I was living in Colorado, I went out a time or two after big western diamondbacks. Rattlesnakes, of course, are dangerous in a much different way than a creature like an anaconda. The biggest anacondas may be capable of seizing, killing, and swallowing at least a small human, whereas a rattler (or other pit vipers like cottonmouths or copperheads) strike out of fear rather than with predatory intent.

And, yes, those strikes can be very dangerous. The largest rattler I ever killed was over five feet long and was as big around as my forearm; a strike from a snake like that can be fatal, especially if it hits anywhere near your torso.

Even so, like so many things, animals are not dangerous if you exercise just a little common sense. I've handled rattlesnakes with no injury to myself or the snake. (Although rattlesnakes can make for some fine eating.) From the photos and videos here, it seems that Freek Vonk knows how to handle anaconda.

You still wouldn't get me in the water with a snake like that.

This seems appropriate.