Forrest Galante on the Myth of Giant Anaconda's in the Amazon

I can sort of understand that in a sense of like, I'm not an adrenaline junkie. Like I don't go for skydives or you know any of that stuff. It doesn't drive me. But that thrill and rush I get of you know darting a bear or working with a lion or doing you know swimming with an anaconda like that fuels me for weeks. Like I get goosebumps thinking about some of them right now because I get so excited by and it's not just for a personal rush but rather you know we're doing it for work or whatever but those moments stick with me forever and I sort of get that but not like I'm just gonna risk my life over this climb or whatever you know. What are your thoughts on giant anacondas? Because there's always been this thing about enormous anacondas that live in the rainforest. So yeah there's fascinating. So I love anacondas I believe and I've got a colleague Brian Fry in Australia actually and he has a similar belief that there are 30 foot anacondas. Now 30 is a big anaconda but you're talking about those mysterious like 50, 100 footers. Okay so take out the Amazon and take out anacondas for a second. Alright. Think about where all the largest snakes are in the world. Florida. Well now yes but you know we've got all these wet tropical environments that house these huge stakes. In Indonesia you have articulated pythons, you have Burmese pythons, you have African rock pythons, Indian rock pythons, anacondas, all these big snakes. The only place that has a wet tropical humid high density of prey environment that doesn't have a massive snake is the Congo, Central Africa. Now stay with me. That area is home to some African rock pythons and stuff but not big monster anaconda sized ones, right? But during World War II there was a colonel who flew over there and this is a well respected colonel I'm sure Jamie you'll be able to find this very quickly. A well respected like I forget he had like his wings or his patch of honor or whatever like very distinguished who him and his two passengers in the plane both reported a 100 foot long snake. They flew over at once. They're like wait a minute what is that? They were there at Dutch Belgium in the Congo. They flew over at once, went what is that and flew over it two more times to verify it and got so low to the ground that they said the snake struck at the airplane and all three people, the pilot, this well respected colonel and the two passengers had the exact same story of this giant snake in Central Africa. Interesting. Yeah and yet no big snake has ever been proven from there but it's also a very poorly biologically explored area. And most of the time when these animals get this big snakes or otherwise they're in very low, yeah here's the picture. They took a photo of it? They did, yeah they did. They're in very low densities so that's the real photo over on the left there. What do they think it was? They thought it was a giant snake, a 50 foot long. So that's the photo right there? I believe so. But the story is fascinating of these colonels. But they don't know like what kind of snake. They don't know if it was a vicon or a python. It would be an undescribed species because the only snake there, the African rock python doesn't get that big. What is the biggest snake that we know? Oh it says it measured approximately 50 feet in length, saw brown green with a white belly, has a triangle shaped jaw and a head three by two feet. Oh my god. A three foot head. The photo was later analyzed and verified to be genuine. Van Lierd claims that, is that how you say his name? I'm not sure. That was the Colonel Remy Van Lierd. As he flew lower for a closer inspection, the snake rose up approximately 10 feet giving a warning that it would have attacked a helicopter if it had been within striking range. But imagine flying over and having a snake sort of lunge at a helicopter. I had a three foot snake head. Jesus Christ. So, Jamie, do you mind going to my Instagram quickly? I'm going to really swallow you alive easily. Look at this one. I posted a picture day before yesterday. This is 18 feet and look at the size of it compared to me and how scary the snake is. Now to think of, yeah, like you said, you're like an M&M to a snake that size. You're a tick tack. You and them chocolate covered almonds that are so good for you. Whoa, look at the size of that thing. That's an 18 footer and look at how, granted it's not three foot by two foot head, but still, that thing, you know. What's the weight on something like that? I was over 200 at Broker scale. Wow. Yeah, I was over 200 pounds. Wow. Indonesian villagers claim to have captured a python that is almost 49 feet long and weighs nearly 990 pounds. I've seen this. It's not verified at all. Do they have an image of it? This might be the one that's on the tractor. No, it's not. There's a fake one on a tractor that it's floated around. Well, it's just very forced perspective. It's like a wide angle lens and the snake is right in front, but it looks massive. But this is NBC. This is NBC News. Let's see if it has images of this sucker. These are all like retics and there are big snakes out there. Look at the size of that goddamn thing. Jesus. What is the biggest snake? Is it a python, the biggest snake that we know of? The heaviest is the reticulated python. Look at the size of that thing. How big is that? That's big. It's probably 20-ish. There's quite a lot of 20-foot snakes out there. Then there's a couple 21, 22s, but that's it. There's all these rumors of 30-foot snakes and 40-foot snakes and blah, blah, blah. There's nothing that's been verified outside of one skin, I believe. I want to say from Indonesia that is like, but skin stretch. That's the other thing, too. That says it turns out to be a tall tail. It says, when Recreation Park in Indonesia put a huge reticulated python on show last week, keepers insisted to reporters it was 49 feet long, make it the longest ever caught, but the find turned out to be a tall tail. How big was it exactly? I bet it was 20-ish. 21, there it is. Yeah, 21 feet still. That's a crazy big. It's a big snake, man. But not 50. Not 50. I have no idea why the snake has shrunk, said one keeper when asked about the discrepancy as the snake lounged on a tree branch inside the cave. Things do shrivel up when you catch them, like fish do, like when you catch a fish. The animals? Yeah. Well, definitely when you tell people about it. That's when you show people. I went fishing here in Austin this morning. Right downtown, literally right in front of the Google building. We were pulling, Lady Bird Lake pulling bass out there. Yeah, there's a lot of bass out there. It was awesome, man. Yeah, it's a great little spot. Yeah, really fun. Right in front of the Google building. Right in front of it, yeah. So the biggest in the world is the python, right? So they're bigger than anacondas? So it's sort of a toss up. The reticulated python has been clocked as the heaviest snake in the world because they get fatter, but the anacondas have been clocked in slightly longer. I think 26 feet is the longest ever recorded. Did you ever see the Jennifer Lopez movie, Anaconda? The documentary? Yeah, it's great. It's a jacorny movie, man. It's so good. The bad snake head if you watch it. Oh, it's so bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. But that was always the rumor, is that there was enormous snakes in the Amazon and that you just didn't see them. I do believe that there are some megafauna out there that are yet to be found, that are in low populations. You believe in the sloth, the giant sloth. I believe that has a ... And again, that's like the thylacine. It's a proven animal. It's been 10,000 years, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't be extant in certain remote areas. Same with some of these big snakes. Maybe not 50 because maybe these things are embellished, but maybe 30, maybe 35, right? And I just think that there are a few, not a lot, of these big things out there. If you're one of these uncontacted Amazonian tribes, of which there are still several, West Popwin tribes, whatever, and you're seeing a 50 foot snake, nobody in the Western world, we're not hearing about that. Those things can be happening and those stories get embellished and passed on and all of that, but we wouldn't even know until Western science gets in there. And it's sort of a double-edged sword, because once it does, it sort of ruins certain aspects of that. But I do believe that there are big animals to be found still.