Researchers in the Amazon have discovered the world's largest snake species, an enormous green anaconda, in Ecuador's rainforest that split off from its closest relatives 10-million years ago though they nearly look identical to this day.
A video shared online shows the scale of the6.1m-long reptiles while one of the researchers, Dutch biologist Freek Vonk, swims alongside a giant 200kg specimen.
It was thought there was only one species of green anaconda in the wild, the Eunectes murinus, but the scientific journal this month revealed the "northern green anaconda" belongs to a different and new species, Eunectes akiyama.
"What we were there to do was use the anacondas as an indicator species for what kind of damage is being done by the oil spills plaguing the Yasuni in Ecuador because the oil extraction is absolutely out of control," said researcher Bryan G Fryd.
Fry, an Australian professor of biology at the University of Queensland who for almost 20 years has been investigating anaconda species found in South America, told Reuters the discovery allows them to show the two species split from each other almost 10-million years ago.
"The amazing part was, despite this genetic difference, and despite their long period of divergence, the two animals are identical," he said.
Although green anaconda snakes are very similar visually, there is a genetic difference of 5.5% which surprised the scientists.
"Which is an incredible amount of genetic difference, particularly when you put it in the context that we're only 2% different from chimpanzees," Fry said.
Anacondas are useful sources of information for the ecological health of the area and the potential impacts on human health of oil spills in the region, Fry said.
Some of the snakes they studied in parts of Ecuador were heavily polluted by oil spills, and the anacondas and arapaima fish are accumulating a large amount of the petrochemical metals, he said.
"That means if arapaima fish are accumulating the oil spill metals, they need to be avoided by pregnant women, in the same way women avoid salmon and tuna in other parts of the world for fear of methylmercury."
New species of Amazon anaconda, world’s largest snake, discovered
Image: via Facebook
Researchers in the Amazon have discovered the world's largest snake species, an enormous green anaconda, in Ecuador's rainforest that split off from its closest relatives 10-million years ago though they nearly look identical to this day.
A video shared online shows the scale of the6.1m-long reptiles while one of the researchers, Dutch biologist Freek Vonk, swims alongside a giant 200kg specimen.
It was thought there was only one species of green anaconda in the wild, the Eunectes murinus, but the scientific journal this month revealed the "northern green anaconda" belongs to a different and new species, Eunectes akiyama.
"What we were there to do was use the anacondas as an indicator species for what kind of damage is being done by the oil spills plaguing the Yasuni in Ecuador because the oil extraction is absolutely out of control," said researcher Bryan G Fryd.
Fry, an Australian professor of biology at the University of Queensland who for almost 20 years has been investigating anaconda species found in South America, told Reuters the discovery allows them to show the two species split from each other almost 10-million years ago.
"The amazing part was, despite this genetic difference, and despite their long period of divergence, the two animals are identical," he said.
Although green anaconda snakes are very similar visually, there is a genetic difference of 5.5% which surprised the scientists.
"Which is an incredible amount of genetic difference, particularly when you put it in the context that we're only 2% different from chimpanzees," Fry said.
Anacondas are useful sources of information for the ecological health of the area and the potential impacts on human health of oil spills in the region, Fry said.
Some of the snakes they studied in parts of Ecuador were heavily polluted by oil spills, and the anacondas and arapaima fish are accumulating a large amount of the petrochemical metals, he said.
"That means if arapaima fish are accumulating the oil spill metals, they need to be avoided by pregnant women, in the same way women avoid salmon and tuna in other parts of the world for fear of methylmercury."
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