The Top Five Largest Snakes in the World

admin | September 21, 2011 | 2 Comments

Snakes—both large and small— incite fear into the minds and hearts of mankind. And while some snakes are totally harmless, easy-going creatures, there are large, intimidating snakes—which makes it pretty easy to see why man is fearful. These writhing, intrepid beasts are the wonders of the world, and have been for millennia. There are myriads of large serpents, yes. But there are five snakes, in particular, that are of a gargantuan size. This article will tell you all about them.

The Green Anaconda. The Green Anaconda is reputed to be largest snake in the world—no small feat (pun intended). The green anaconda is a semi-aquatic boa that lives in the marshlands of South America. The average adult size for a green anaconda is s 15-17 feet; its weight can easily surpass 200 lbs, (the heaviest one found was 550 lbs). In terms of maximal length found, the finding have been contentious: one report says that the largest recorded anaconda has a length of 26 ft (a tad over eight meters); however, in another report, the largest anaconda found was 28 ft (about nine meters). Today, though, the largest to be confirmed is about 28 ft. Either way, the green anaconda is pretty large, so you wouldn’t want to see it in person. From there, let’s segue into its diet: it’s a carnivorous beast, it doesn’t discriminate between birds, humans or even other anacondas (smaller ones, of course). It non-venomous, it assails its prey through constriction; after which, it will swallow the prey whole. It’s certain that you wouldn’t adopt a green anaconda as a pet.

The Reticulated Python. Many confuse the reticulated python as the largest snake in the world; however, it is only the longest one. While the average reticulated python is 18 feet, the longest one was recorded to be 32 feet. The reticulated python is found in South East Asia. They are nocturnal hunters; they use their lucid, “retic” eyes to hunt their prey at night. Let’s just say that they’ve been pretty successful.

The Burmese Python. The interesting thing about the Burmese python is that, to incubate their eggs, they raise the temperature of their bodies, rather than merely enveloping itself around the egg, as other serpents do (scientists have not been able to figure out why the Burmese python is capable of this). In terms of size, the average adult length is about 13 feet, and the longest one recorded was 20 feet.

The African Rock Python. The African rock python is—and this is putting it mildly—fierce. With the average adult length of 18 feet, and the maximum 25 feet long, its dominance in the wild is aggressive and robust, and it will eat nearly anything that it can wrap it mouth around. As suggested by its name, the snake’s habitat is Africa.

The Scrub Python. It holds the distinguished title of the largest non-venomous snake in all of Australia. The scrub python’s maximum length is 8.5 meters (28 feet).