Giant anaconda species in the Amazon of Ecuador is the largest to be documented | Hacker News Reader

Giant anaconda species in the Amazon of Ecuador is the largest to be documented

usatoday.com

97 pointsgardenfelder49 comments

I've seen a Florida snake swallow a 5ft alligator, it was a Python though and not an Anaconda: https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/5-foot-gator-found-in-st... ... I don't think it's the only one that has been found in Florida either (one busted out of the snake).

I bet you if you posted an article about the Florida Python challenge on HN people would be expecting a very different competition!

Disruptive start up idea:

Unsustainable animal products from nuisance invasive species to feed otherwise controversial, high end, luxury European industries (read Italian) .

- Florida python for handbags

- Wild Texas boar for sausages and salumes.

Etc.

Hire FL and TX locals in a Uber model.

Unsustainable is the key challenge. The business goal is to get rid of the invasive species, but how to build a business whose goal is to be a not going concern?

Sequence invasive species. Everything gets to be limited time only, build on the FOMO.

You can't eat wild boar.

Or rather you can and individual hunters sometimes do. But the various diseases and parasites wild boars tend to have makes them uneconomical to harvest for resale.

Trust me, Texans have thought of this.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/texas-feral-hog-problem-...

I thought that was a cooking issue? That is Americans like rarer, more parasitic prone, cooking. Would this be a concern in a traditional salume made with (albeit Italian) wild boar?

No idea about the Italian wild boar. The issue is that the American FDA regulates foods packaged for sale, and the amount of processing that would be needed to render American wild boar safe according to their standards would make the enterprise uneconomical.

These regulations don't apply to Americans who hunt, kill, and eat wild boar for their own private consumption. But yeah, if they do so they should cook it thoroughly.

The idea is to ship it to Italy where wild boar is heavily regulated to avoid over harvesting.

Let the Italians figure out if its safe and if they want it.

I mean, you can, and I've occasionally found wild boar at Central Market in Austin. But... it's very rare, and I suspect the boar wasn't that "wild". There are ranches in Texas that dedicate themselves to hunting, so they'll have serious deer fencing to keep deer in, and they'll even buy and breed deer to have enough for hunting season. It wouldn't surprise me if there's also ranches that breed "wild" boar for hunting.

> how to build a business whose goal is to be a not going concern?

You've hit upon the recurring problem with such ideas. There's a rich history of programs to incentive people to solve issues with invasive or troublesome species. They seem to almost invariably fail and also often end up making the original problem worse. My search-fu is failing me but IIRC classic examples include paying for rats in England and venomous snakes in India. Both of which ended up causing people to factory farm the desired species. Perversely, once officials realized what was happening the incentive programs were halted, the farmers stopped and their uncashed crops escaped into the wild making the problem even worse.

+1 The `Perverse incentive` Wikipedia article has a great list of examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

There is at least one person doing this with pythons. The guys name is dusty and he was on the tv shows guardians of the glades and swamp people serpent invasion. I believe this is his store page: https://www.pythonwildman.com/

«The Orinoco basin of the Amazon» ?!

This is a geographic mistake, the Orinoco river is not a tributary of the Amazon, it's an independent river and one of the biggest. According to wikipedia it is the third or fourth largest river in the world by discharge volume of water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orinoco_Basin

«Its discharge is the third largest of any river worldwide, after the Amazon and the Congo»

Edit: change my wording about the journalist

Is it possible the author is referring to the Amazon Rainforest instead of the Amazon River?

That is how I read it

The whole thing is confusing, where did they find it? In Ecuador or in the Orinoco basin? There no overlap between the two...

I don't know, the geographic mess is everywhere:

«A giant anaconda species captured recently in the Amazon of Ecuador»

The Orinoco basin doesn't reach Ecuador... The Orinoco basin is within Colombia and Venezuela (and touches Brazil).

Here's the actual article instead of the telephone game in USA Today.

https://doi.org/10.3390/d16020127

Thanks, super interesting.

Actually the Amazon basin and the Orinoco basin are connected by the Casiquiare river (that flows in either directions depending on the rain).

That's why the newly identified Anaconda species is in both basins.

When you have a meeting with the investors at 9, but have to swim with anacondas at 10...

Unless cryptozoological accounts[0] are to be believed.

I highly doubt it but it would be cool if there were a living snake the size of Titanoboa[1] still.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remy_Van_Lierde#Alleged_encoun...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanoboa

> I highly doubt it but it would be cool if there were a living snake the size of Titanoboa[1] still.

Why? On practice it would not make rainforest significantly more dangerous to humans than it is now.

And it would definitely be cool to know that such behemoth exists out there.

I think you misread the comment

You're right

nobody tell the yoink guy

For those not in on the joke, the comment refers to Fishingarrett a wildlife enthusiast who operates in the Florida everglades. He has 1.25 million YouTube subscribers (1) and is known for saying "yoink" when picking up seemingly highly dangerous (but usually not) critters.

It's pretty entertaining considering he often goes out at night, barefoot, in waters that would give most people "the willies".

Certainly channeling Steve Irwin.

1: https://www.youtube.com/@fishingarrett

Clear publicity stunt. Same history appeared a few days ago under a different issue.

Taking in mind the position of the camera too close to the snake head, I wouldn't even discard that this hasn't been filmed on an aquarium. A truly wild snake never would allow to get too close without a response.

How do you know the position of the camera? It could be 2 meters away and zoomed in.

I can't know. But In some part of the video you can spot the sake head making a strange movement, like bumping into some invisible obstacle or something. Zooming into a dirt river does not made the dirt between the target and the lens disappear magically

I'm just discussing the title suggesting that this video shows the biggest anaconda measured. This is obviously publicity. I have seen much bigger animals on photos or records. Is a big discovery so, why the need to lie about that?.

I don't have any problem with the claim that a new species of anaconda had been discovered. What I dislike, a lot, is the banalization of the Biology with media disrespecting the zoologists and forcing them to adopt a Tarzan persona, and became children entertainers begging for aaws and oows. Congratulations to the Dutch Irwin for appearing in the Rivas article among the other twenty researchers, but if his apport was the video swimming with the snake, it was totally unnecessary.

The diver in that video is Freek Vonk, famous Dutch TV biologist (basically the Dutch Steve Irwin) and professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

This video was part of the original announcement of the discovery. Freek does a lot to teach the general public about animals, and that involves a lot of spectacular videos that seem reckless and dangerous, but he clearly knows what he's doing. He's been doing this for ages. I'm absolutely sure this wasn't an aquarium. I'm also pretty sure Freek knows more about how to safely approach snakes than you do.

> but he clearly knows what he's doing.

So what is he doing to avoid getting eaten / spooking the snake?

I suspect he knows snake behaviour better than either of us. Maybe he can spot it is not hunting/has just eaten/is just patrolling its patch/idk, but is not dangerous at that moment.

Animals that are hunting are normally hidden.

Wearing a loose white shirt is probably on purpose. Will make easier to the other members of the team to spot him in case of trouble and pull him out of the water. Also could divert a possible attack making easier to detach the snake head.

Anacondas are famously unpredictable and got upset easily. Swimming with them is not a move driven by wisdom. My bet is that "avoiding an attack because I know how to handle it" is not so much the main objective here as: "in case of attack, film and rescue"

He is a TV maker, so it's definitely possible he considered the possibility of an attack as an upside rather than a downside. I hadn't thought about the loose shirt being a possible benefit; I thought he'd just jumped in in his office attire because he's an impulsive ADHD loon and it's not that deep and it makes good TV.

> He is a TV maker, so it's definitely possible he considered the possibility of an attack as an upside rather than a downside.

Therefore degrading the profession of zoologist to clowns that put themselves on dangerous and stupid situations all the time to sell a TV series, that is the product advertised here.

These might be conflicting goals: defending the stature of zoologists, and making kids excited about animals. His focus is definitely on the latter.

> I'm also pretty sure Freek knows more about how to safely approach snakes than you do.

Maybe, maybe not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freek_Vonk: “He has been bitten by a number of venomous snakes, almost lost his arm due to a Caribbean reef shark bite”

Then perhaps it really is as reckless and dangerous as it looks. Still, he hasn't died yet, so either he's very lucky or he must be doing something right. I hope he won't go the way Steve Irwin did.

Well, none of the venomous snakes that I messed with, bit me. Can't say the same about fishes (The shark event was embarrassing, I still keep my finger and don't want to talk about it).

So maybe my approach of "not approach unless is funny" is better. I have been fairly successful keeping my scar-pride list as low as humanely possible (but I must admit that I never discovered a new anaconda).

I relocate rattlesnakes all the time and have never been bitten. But it's only a matter of time. When it happens I'll go to the hospital. My insurance company will hate me (antivenin is extremely expensive), but I'll be fine.

Of course anacondas are non-venomous. If one bites you it can be a trauma and blood loss issue simply because of the size of their mouth. But python hunters in Florida get bitten all the time and it's no big deal. (One even says she insists on letting the snake bite her because she is about to kill it.)

I've been bitten by smaller constrictors (rat snakes) often. The wound draws blood but it doesn't hurt because their teeth are razor-sharp. First aid involves a band-aid and triple antibiotic ointment.

I saw this video and was amazed. If it is real, that snake is absolutely massive. It seems almost too big to be viable. I am curious what it eats, as it seems it would be too large to be quick enough to eat most mammals. I'd have to guess these snakes are mainly ambush predators, and it does seem a quick search verifies that.

Also, it's a bit sad you can commit unprovoked physical assault on national television and then get invited to voiceover a nature documentary for National Geographic and Disney.

Friend of mine grew up in Malaysia and they'd get snakes of this length. Once a giant snake crossed the road and took up the entire width of the road. Others have reported similar.

https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+as+wide+as+a+road

AFAICT, muscles scale with the size so there's no reason to assume that length would reduce its speed during an assault.

>AFAICT, muscles scale with the size so there's no reason to assume that length would reduce its speed during an assault.

Muscles scale on the square of their radius, their weight on the cube. An ant could put any powerlifter to shame pound for pound.

Do ants have muscles?

Sure, mesosoma (middle part of the body) in ants is mostly muscles.

All animals have

Wait, those are very different. Is the snake's width the same as the road's width? (Like some sci-fi T-rex) Or the snake's length the same as the road's width? (Like a fairly long snake on a fairly narrow one-lane road)

(I'm thinking of that "10-foot dragon" meme, iykyk)

Is there a right amount of cancelling someone before it doesn’t become sad anymore?

I don't think it's canceling someone to not go out of your way to put them as the face/voice and title namesake of your Disney and National Geographic nature documentary.

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