by A video of a giant snake ʀᴇɢᴜʀɢɪᴛᴀᴛɪɴɢ an entire cow has gone viral, ratcheting up over 700,000 views on YouTube in just five days.
In the clip, a green anaconda with a large bump in its body is shown writhing on a shallow riverbed. It then opens its mouth and throws up the undigested ᴄᴀʀᴄᴀss of the cow into the jungle swamp. The snake takes about 90 seconds to rid itself of its earlier meal.
The sɪᴄᴋᴇɴɪɴɢ video was posted on the site by MrCocktail888 and was allegedly filmed in Brazil. Theories about what made the snake sɪᴄᴋ vary; one observer said the reptile may have felt ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ and needed to regurgitate its food in order to make a quick ᴇsᴄᴀᴘᴇ if needed.
Although when the video was posted online, it suggested the hapless creature was a cow, commenters have debated whether the it is in fact a capybara. The giant rodent, which is related to a guinea pig and weighs up to 66kg (145lb), is native to South America and the preferred ᴘʀᴇʏ of the anaconda.
Green anacondas can grow to more than 29 feet, weigh more than 550 pounds, and measure more than 12 inches in diameter. Females are significantly larger than males. Other anaconda species, all from South America and all smaller than the green anaconda, are the yellow, dark-spotted, and Bolivian varieties.
They reach their monumental size on a diet of wild pigs, deer, birds, turtles, capybara, caimans, and even jaguars. Anacondas are nonvenomous constrictors, coiling their muscular bodies around captured ᴘʀᴇʏ and sǫᴜᴇᴇᴢɪɴɢ until the animal ᴀsᴘʜʏxɪᴀᴛᴇs. Jaws attached by stretchy ligaments allow them to sᴡᴀʟʟᴏᴡ their ᴘʀᴇʏ whole, no matter the size, and they can go weeks or months without food after a big meal.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a snake eating an impossibly gigantic meal. Earlier this January, we shared with you images of a python ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀɪɴɢ a giant hedgehog at the Lake Eland Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. However, this particular python had the worst day of its life after it decided to ᴇᴀᴛ a porcupine.
