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Tuesday 29 March 2011

Another Sucuriju

Marcelo is a member of my Yahoo group Frontiers-of-Zoology and he is from Brazil with a keen interest in the Sucuriju Gigante. Today he posted several links pertaining to the subject, together with a copy of his letter to the Sao Paolo Aquarium asking for more pictures. One of the links he supplied led me to the site, which I translated with the Google engine and am posting here:

Blog of Lucas Cardozo Sunday, May 10, 2009


Anaconda 40 meters who was killed by the army. [Reconstruction of the scene]






FIRST AND FOREMOST THAT ALREADY SAY NO WAY OUT. JUST FOUND INTERESTING POST. REMEMBERING THAT THE PHOTO is merely illustrative. TÁ NA CARA WHAT IS A PAINTING. WHO KNOW OF SOMETHING PLEASE POST IN THE COMMENTS, EVEN U.S. (and most people) ARE NOT BELIEVING.


Anaconda 40 meters who was killed by the army. * Biologists say this story is real ... Because the fatode that anacondas grow until the day they die ... that snakes past came to live 50 to 80 years today with deforestation and poaching of these animals hardly an anaconda comes to live 15 years! * According to the army, one day in the afternoon, called on the army base in the region as "strong" on the banks of the Amazon River, watchman during a vigil on the movement of a sentry noticed a strange animal that left the water and approached increasingly it. When he could see that it was a huge snake, the alarm sounded, alerting all those soldiers who manned Fort. When the animal approached the sentry, he tried to catch him. Then order was given to shoot the anaconda. All soldiers fired gun shots against the snake, but even so, she advanced against the soldiers intent on devouring them. Then it was given new order for them to use heavy weapons such as rifle, shotgun, etc.. After several minutes of fighting and shooting a lot, managed to shoot down the huge beast that measured 40 meters, about 5 tons, 80 inches in diameter. She was baptized as "Ju Anaconda."[Sucuriju]
So, do you believe?
To which I added the Comment: Anacondas 40 feet long I can accept without a problem. 80 feet long I have a problem with although I allow the maximum might be just short of that at 60-75 feet long, very exceptionally and only on the basis of good witness' testamony. 40 meters or over 120 feet long are a definite problem. One of my standard explanations is that there was a mistake in the unit of measure, so that a "vara" close to 2 feet long might be understood by another person as a "vara" of 3 feet long, or something similar. In which case the highly controversial measure of over 120 feet long could actually have been meant originally as the less controversial 80 feet long, or hopefully somewhat less than that.


That is the way I answered the matter in the group. However, upon looking the painting over again, I think perhaps the great length is mistaken and actually this might not be the large and long Sucuriju Gigante that is being depicted, it might be the proportionately much stouter Black Boa, which is not said to grow nearly so long. The report of the body in the river might be unconnected to the animal killed by the soldiers and the measurement of the animal guessed at (but not measured) in the water could have been very much less- perhaps closer to 40 feet than 40 meters. It is still an enormously thick-bodied snake.


Looking at the scale of the canoe and the people in the canoe at that distance from the snake's body causes me to think that it must be closer to 40 or perhaps 45 feet than to the reported 40 meters. A 40 meter long snake would fill the whole picture area and continue off to the side by this scale. Actually the snake as it is depicted is not horribly outsized.


My opinion is also partially based on the fact that the "Snoring" or "Growling" anaconda is said to have a head which looks like a dog's head and the head of this one is similar to a dog's head. The way the body is positioned is however meant to look like the creature in the photograph which was supposedly the one killed by the soldiers. And it would not look that way floating down the river, its body would be riding lower in the river and more submerged. So that much of the depiction would be inaccurate. I am basically adding the photo here in case one or more of the contingencies I suggested here could be correct.

Best Wishes, Dale D.
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2 comments:

  1. I notice that the blog postings are becoming more unmaneagable lately: this blog entry was posted and corrected multiple times to make spaces between the sections, yet every time I leave and come back the spaces have been taken out and the text is all in one conglomeration. I shall have to try and fix this again later on.

    Best Wishes, Dale D.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Four hours and the next try later, the gaps are back in. I can only hope that they STAY in this time.

    PS, Marcelo has also sent in a Brazilian report of a "Chupacabras-Like" Reptoid-UFO occupants case to the group in the interrim.

    Best Wishes, Dale D.

    ReplyDelete

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