by Greg Mayer

So here’s the wrap-up on anacondas. First, as I mentioned in the previous anaconda post, alert readers went digging and found out the true story. Reader Roger first suggested it was stretched, and, following a suggestion by infiniteimprobablit, determined it was changed from an aspect ratio of .550 (typical, I think of cellphones) to 16:9; Michael Fisher located the original video. Here’s the original video:

There was also a discussion of the stretched video on reddit. The snake now looks like a typical anaconda: the stretched one made its color pattern look a bit odd, and appear to be very wide (which added to the impression of great size). After watching the original video, I sent the following message to Jerry:

It’s not fake, but it’s been stretched from a vertical cell phone video to fit a 16:9 format. I’ve now seen the original video. It’s crossing a road (not a stream), it’s not swimming, the guy filming is walking (not in a boat). It’s a big snake, but on the order of 5-7 m, not 15. Readers found this, and I’ll put it together into a post for tomorrow afternoon.

My guess on the conversion ratio was right, or close to it (see the detailed discussion by Michael Fisher and Roger on figuring out the exact method of aspect ratio conversion/stretching). The video was posted by the Youtube account of Dumato, a Swiss company with Brazilian roots. They said this about it in the video description:

Many thanks to Dinda from Manaus who took this video and sent to DUMATO, showing how Amazonia is alive and free

davelenny, judging by the ruts in the road, figured the snake to be less than 3 car widths long (which would be less than 18 ft. for a 6 ft. wide vehicle such as a Jeep or Land Rover. Michael Fisher, noting that the ruts are likely to be 60 inches apart, so that the road would have a width of 10 ft., suggests a total length of 12-15 ft. (ca. 4-5 m) for the snake. Jeeps/trucks have wider axles (65″ for a Toyota Land Cruiser), and the flooded section of the road where the snake is is a bit wider than the rest of the road, so I’d go a bit larger than Michael. My initial guess of 5-7 m is probably not way off, but I would lean more toward the lower end of that range.

Next, there’s the size of the anaconda on display at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It is about 22 feet, which I figured out by measuring the floor tile length using my feet (my feet, shod, are one foot long, as I’ve verified on many floor tiles and soccer fields), and then counting the number of floor tiles from one end of the snake to the other.

My hat, which placed in the picture for scale, is 7-8 inches across. Michael Fisher, using the hat, came up with 20 feet, which was the closest of any reader, and given the angle, a pretty good estimate. So, with a 20% stretch, the live length would be 18.3 feet, which is spuriously precise, so let’s say 18 feet.

And finally, as an extra added bonus, I need to point out that that’s not a shed skin; this is a shed skin:

Note that the shed skin is translucent and nearly patternless; it is also much lighter (in weight) than an actual skin, which is what is on display in San Diego. Shed skins are only rarely taken as specimens for museums, usually only to document very uncommon species or occurrences. The above is a shed from my ball python, Vyvyan. Below, you can see the skin between the scales. The scales are nearly transparent, but the skin between is more opaque; it is this opaque skin that gives a skin its “stretch”.