The world’s largest snake is dead

#worlds #largest #snake #dead

Freek Vonk snorkels with the anaconda weeks before it is found dead.

Photo: Freek Vonk/Instagram

Northern green anaconda.

Foto: Bryan Fry / University of Queensland

The anaconda’s head was as big as a human’s.

Photo: Freek Vonk/Instagram

Freek Vonk.

Foto: ANP / Alamy Stock

A month ago, an international research team made a huge discovery in the Amazon. A huge snake was found in the rainforest. It would turn out to be the world’s largest, writes The Daily Mail.

The monster snake was over seven meters long, weighed 200 kilograms and had a head the size of a human. The reptile was one of the few known specimens of the rare northern green anaconda species. The snake was named “Ana Julia” by the researchers.

Dutch professor and TV personality Freek Vonk, 40, was one of those who came across the anaconda in the rainforest.

In a post on Instagram, Vonk can be seen snorkeling alongside the giant animal. He has described the snake as “mythical and legendary” and “one of the highlights of my scientific career”.

Now Ana Julia has been found dead.

On Sunday, the anaconda body floated lifelessly on the Formoso River in southern Brazil. Freek Vonk announces on Instagram that he heard “from several sources” that Ana Julia was shot to death by unidentified hunters. Now he and other researchers are horrified – and cursed.

“I am so sad and angry at the same time! How SICK do you have to be to do this to such a beautiful and unique animal!? This is so sad,” writes the Dutchman on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C48Xk_hNPof/?img_index=1?hidecaption=true

Skansen-Jonas reacts

Jonas Wahlström, Skansenakvariet’s manager, handles reptiles on a daily basis. Skansen’s largest snake is a four-metre anaconda – and that is very large for a snake, he notes.

Snakes the size of Ana Julia are therefore something very special. Perhaps that is precisely why they are hunted, says the Skansen manager.

– They hunt for fun down there. There is no tradition of eating snakes in South America, so it’s probably just about “what a big snake, we shoot it”.

Jonas Wahlström, like Freek Vonk, believes that hunting anacondas is completely pointless.

– It’s a shame. It’s completely unnecessary to just shoot them dead for fun.

A large-scale police investigation is now underway in Brazil, write Metro UK. It is the country’s military police that will get to the bottom of what took Ana Julia’s life. They have not yet been able to determine how she died.

Jonas Wahlström.

Photo: OLLE SPORRONG

Jonas Wahlström with a poisonous snake.

Photo: ROGER VIKSTRÖM

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