In the wild heart of Venezuela,
earth and water merge to create
a landscape like no other
one that has bred many
a legendary appetite.
But for the early explorers
who ventured into this savage place,
no creature loomed larger
or more terrifying
than South America's giant serpent.
Trophy hunters spun tales of 100-foot
monsters, intent on human flesh
and for centuries this astonishing
creature has been obscured by legends
as tangled and dense
as the swamps it inhabits.
But now a barefoot biologist is
taking on the anaconda.
His mission: to snatch its secrets
from the murk of myth and terror,
giving us our first glimpse
into the hidden life
of the largest snake on earth.
Big snake. Big snake.
In the first scarlet rays of morning
a primeval world awakens.
Birds by the tens of thousands respond
to the siren call of the Ilanos
flooded savannas that cover
one-third of Venezuela.
Months of drenching rains have
waterlogged these plains,
creating a soggy Serengeti as vast and
pristine as its African counterpart.
But the dry season has begun,
and herds of capybaras
now begin to follow the receding water.
These giant rodents the world's
largest can weigh up to 140 pounds.
Soon this lush place will be
a parched plain...
so the creatures of the Ilanos
eat while the eating is good.
But their idyll of peace and plenty
is about to be interrupted.
Curled in the water hyacinth
is 13 feet of starving serpent:
a giant female anaconda.
She has not eaten for months...
and has her lidless eyes
on a suitably giant meal.
Oblivious to her presence,
the capybara family plays.
Dull eyed but sharp tongued,
the snake tastes the air for
the scent of her rodent prey.
The season lends urgency to her hunger
It's time for her to mate
and only well-fed snakes
breed successfully.
Once pregnant
she won't eat again until after
the babies are born seven months later
So she'd better eat well now.
At her strike, the Ilanos takes flight
But for one capybara, it's too late.
Anacondas kill with power, not poison.
Locked in the snake's deadly coils,
the capybara is being squeezed
so tight it cannot breathe...
so tight, in fact,
that it's blood can't circulate.
Her elastic jaws stretched
impossibly wide,
she now begins the ponderous business
of swallowing her victim head first.
She has paid a price for this meal
She bears the bite marks of
the capybara's final struggle.
There may be other snakes in the world
that are as long as the anaconda,
but none can match it for sheer bulk.
Her body was a foot thick before
she ate the capybara.
Six hours later, the last of the
rodent has disappeared into the snake.
Her post-meal proportions are
chilling to the human eye.
She's actually quite vulnerable now.
But fortunately for her,
the only creature audacious
enough to tangle
with a full-grown female anaconda
is on the trail of another snake.
Slogging through the hyacinth is
biologist Jesus Rivas.
Since 1992,
he's headed up the very first attempt
to study anacondas in the wild
a study funded in part
by National Geographic.
Before the study began,
scientists knew virtually nothing
about the biology
of this shy and dangerous creature.
Okay, you want me to hold...
Wildlife biologist Renee Owens joined
Jesus in his slippery pursuit in 1996.
The husband and wife team have caught
and cataloged almost 800
of these giant snakes.
Many are given names:
This one they call Godzilla.
Are you losing your grip?
In a second I will.
Oh, you won't. Hold it tight.
This is an animal that is the absolute
master of the swamp,
the custom-made animal for this place.
catch and kill animals much stronger
and much tougher than people.
Oh, it's a big mama.
Come here and get a better grip.
Come here.
To work on a dangerous
animal like this...
potentially, at least, very dangerous,
you have to have complete trust in
each other or you just can't do it,
because you can't go in
and be worrying about...
what could go wrong
and how you could be hurt.
Godzilla.
We are having a ball, aren't we?
What I want to do is to get to know
what the anaconda is all about...
we're going to study where they live,
what they eat, when they breed,
what temperature they prefer,
what vegetation they like...
to put on the snake
shoes and wear them.
Wait, wait, wait.
Jesus and Renee want to observe the
females during breeding.
To do so, they must get radio
transmitters into as many snakes
as possible in the next few weeks.
The force feeding may look brutal
but it's little more than an
annoyance to a snake large enough
to swallow a small person.
I need you to hold the head now, Renee.
Below my hands.
Wait, wait. Okay, got her.
Ah, don't worry.
Oh, you want to kiss me, don't you?
I'm not your lover.
I'm trying to keep the female
from getting away.
And I have to do that any way I can.
They're slippery, there's no traction,
there's nothing to grab onto...
I'll pretty much kneel
on the body of the female...
I think it went down far enough
cause it's the only way
I have to keep her in one place.
It is thrilling and dangerous work.
But perhaps this female will lead them
to the heart of a great mystery
the remarkable love life
of the anaconda.
Godzilla.
Jesus's living laboratory is an
enormous patchwork of Ilanos,
thanks to three Venezuelan
cattle ranches that
play host to the anaconda study.
With so much ground to cover
the best way for Jesus to keep tabs
on his radio-tagged snakes
is from the air.
Conspicuous in the hyacinth below is
the giant female that ate the capybara
a snake Jesus has named Diega.
Warmth from the sun speeds up Diega's
digestive process...
bloating her with gasses
and keeping her afloat.
Jesus will keep an eye on her
and return to collect her when she's
gotten back her girlish figure.
With the serpent sleeping
off her meal,
this part of Eden seems
impossibly idyllic.
But not all of the capybara's
companions in the Ilanos
are as harmless as the snowy egret.
For this is the land of the caiman,
South America's infamous
alligator cousin.
For a reptile of this size,
there is no more sumptuous meal
than the giant rodent.
The scent of blood
in the water draws a crowd
of fearsome scavengers from below
Red piranha gather
hoping for leftovers.
But today
the hungry caiman will disappoint.
He's not about to let even a careless
mouthful escape his jaws.
Twice a day now
the anaconda patrol makes the rounds,
with spotters on the roof Renee
behind the wheel, and her dog, Chukka
an apprentice snake hunter himself
riding shotgun.
It's been a red-letter day
four snakes already captured
and one to go.
They've come for Diega
who's been digesting her capybara
supper for more than two weeks.
Jesus prefers to do his
snake-hunting barefoot
it's the best way to feel the
slippery skin of an anaconda
under the hyacinth.
But in waters that contain piranha,
stingrays,
electric eels and caiman,
he's taking a considerable risk.
When anaconda-hunting,
there's safety in numbers
and colleague John Thorbjarnarson
sometimes joins in.
When you go out, never by yourself
because these animals are big
and they are predators
and you are potential prey.
Two of my assistants
have been attacked by anaconda.
Chukka, look, snake, Chukka.
A protesting Diega is removed
from her refuge.
Fortunately, she's still sluggish
from her meal
and would rather escape than attack.
Wow!
It's beautiful.
Look at those colors.
Diega is not nearly as taken
with Jesus as he is with her.
Renee puts an old sock over
the snake's massive head
to keep the teeth at bay.
Stay!
Stay!
Be good.
This is like mud wrestling.
Previous catches of the day
are getting restless in the truck.
It's time to steer a course for home.
With their home doubling
as their laboratory,
living with snakes has become
a way of life for Renee and Jesus.
I think we can do the female first.
It's eight hundred
and forty-three, right?
Once inside,
they begin processing the snakes.
What number is this?
Eight hundred and what?
Jesus marks each snake with a number.
Renee sketches their tail markings
the anaconda version of a fingerprint.
It's easier than wrestling
snakes in the wild,
but it has its drawbacks too.
Living with snakes basically
is that it stinks.
Literally, it just smells really bad.
They have this musk that smells
if you're not really an expert
it smells just like an animal that's
been rotting for about five days.
And there are times
when we have in the house anywhere
from three to 20 to 25 bags of
snakes sitting around the house
with four drums full of big snakes,
so basically, yeah, it stinks.
Diega measures about 13 feet long
a giant snake,
but by no means the largest.
No one knows how long
an anaconda can get.
The 150-foot monsters described in
Brazilian news accounts
are biologically impossible.
Even the largest trophy skins
don't approach that.
But Jesus's most conservative
estimate still boggles the mind.
This is an animal that can grow
real close to 30 feet.
The weight of an animal of that kind
is something like 1,200 pounds.
We're talking about more than a boar
more than a normal cow.
Now cataloged and fitted
with a transmitter,
Diega is returned to the Ilanos.
Guess about here.
Alright.
Renee and Jesus bid her a
temporary farewell,
hoping that she will successfully mate.
We'll keep in touch.
Yup, we'll be back.
You bet we'll keep in touch.
As the dry season progresses
the heat intensifies
and wildlife traffic jams worsen
in the remaining waterways.
Capybara herds are forced to
congregate in shrinking pools.
And tempers run short among
dominant males with harems to guard.
At the water's edge
a newborn gets a maternal once-over.
But the mother is still in labor
there are more on the way.
The impending birth
has attracted vultures.
But they'll play
an unexpected role here.
Unlikely midwives, they strip the
newborn of its protein-rich placenta,
and squabble over it
leaving the baby free
to take its first labored breaths.
The newborns could use a few minutes
to get their bearings,
but the Ilanos offers no grace periods.
They've been noticed by
a dominant male nearby.
And his interest may not be benign.
This newborn may be the offspring
of the dominant male
or that of an upstart rival.
Scientists have yet to determine
what force now drives him to act.
In a rarely seen display of violence
he passes sentence on the newborns
and appoints himself executioner.
No death goes unnoticed on the Ilanos.
Spectacled caiman bide their time.
Instantly, the vultures shed their
midwife ways for a more familiar role.
Then the caimans lurch ashore
for their share.
An underwater cleanup
crew will get the rest.
Piranhas, drawn as always
to a scene of carnage,
work their grisly magic.
Minutes later, all that remains of
the young capybara are the bones.
In a place where some lifetimes are
measured in minutes,
a lucky survivor clings to its mother.
He may have no more
to fear from his own kind.
But the capybara's enemies
on the Ilanos are many.
It's late afternoon in
the Venezuelan savanna.
Everywhere, anacondas are on the move,
taking advantage of cooler temperatures
to keep up with the receding waters.
Jesus and Renee savor these
last few weeks in the Ilanos.
Soon the rains will come,
making fieldwork virtually impossible.
Work in the Ilanos is really a
unique experience.
You can see the shape of the earth
like an ocean of savannah around you.
You have the feeling that those
animals that are out there
were there before Columbus
arrived to America.
I feel like this is where I belong.
Skimmers grab a
last meal as dusk descends.
The evening slant of light
signals rush hour in the Ilanos,
as the birds head home to roost,
further darkening the
sky with their numbers.
On a riverbank
a jaguar finds his last minutes
of daytime rest plagued by flies.
The big cat needs to rouse
himself soon and find a meal.
Morning finds a
massive female anaconda
looking for an escape
from the rising sun.
The drying river bed exposes muddy
crevices among the roots
cool, damp caves
where a snake might wait out
the last weeks of the dry season.
But the best laid plans of anacondas
are no match for Jesus
and his uncanny knack for
uncovering snake haunts.
This is the domain of an
anaconda named Marion...
an old friend with a
notoriously bad temper.
I think there's a snake here, guys.
Yup, a big one, too.
Big, like Marion big?
Probably, Marion, big, yeah.
If it's Marion,
she'll come straight for me.
She hates me.
Uh oh, she's Marion.
She already snapped at the pole.
She snapped at the pole already.
Renee will never forget her
introduction to Marion.
Yeah, when Marion bit me
it was kind of a surprise,
because I'd seen Jesus get bit
by snakes all the time.
He might not admit that,
but he gets bit a lot.
It goes with the territory.
I thought
Well, it can't hurt that much,
because it happens all the time.
He doesn't say much.
And she bit me, and yeah
it hurt like hell.
That's a huge head just full of muscle
it's just pure muscle.
And she got the
smallest part of my body,
and yeah, there's no denying it.
It hurts a lot.
Alright
Big snake, big snake.
Marion has always made her
contributions to science reluctantly.
Jesus is convinced she remembers
each capture...
and gets more dangerous
with each encounter.
Alright.
Alright. It's her.
Marion is quite capable
of killing a human being.
If I let her wrap around me,
I'm history.
I'm gone.
I'd need at least two more,
three more people to unwrap her
because once she makes the loop,
she is absolutely impossible to undo.
You can't just stick your hands
between the loops and loosen her up.
It's much too tight.
So even if I have people helping me
they need to know what they're doing,
because otherwise it's very hard to
it's a very strong animal.
And also the teeth are shaped like
needles pushing backwards.
First the mouth holds
and then if the animal gets
to make a loop around the prey,
it doesn't matter
what kind of prey it is, it's dead.
Anacondas can and do take prey
the size of humans,
and many a person's
disappearance on the Ilanos
has been blamed on the giant snakes.
Though no human deaths
have been confirmed,
members of the anaconda team
have been stalked and attacked.
So, yeah, having been bitten sometimes
yet doing the right thing
I've managed to have all my
fingers and toes so far.
Over the years
Jesus has recaptured some of
his snakes several times.
He's come to like and respect
them as individuals,
but understands that the
feelings aren't mutual.
Each time I catch them
each time I find them,
I learn something new about them.
And I get attached to them.
I get to understand even
their personalities,
makes me really happy
when we find an old friend.
But I don't think they're quite as
happy to see me as I am to see them.
No, let go, let go. Give me room.
Trying to defend herself
this old friend has sunk
her fangs into Jesus' hand.
Okay, open the mouth now.
Ready?
Yeah.
Alright, push your finger forward
if you can.
Because her teeth curve backwards,
he must fight off
the instinct to pull away,
which would only do more damage.
Instead, he must push his hand
deeper into her mouth
to free his skewered finger.
Alright, back a little bit.
No, it's caught...
Yeah...
Need a stick.
Alright...
A stick, yeah.
Long on power and short
on stamina the anaconda relents
after a few minutes.
It's loosening up now.
Okay, okay.
We got it, we got it.
Okay.
After six years of snake encounters
Jesus still marvels at the range
of temperaments
among his favorite creatures.
Anaconda have a
very interesting personality.
Some animals are normally oblivious
and we have caught them several times
and we know they are tame animals.
Some of them are absolute bitches.
They're really...
they get to be really mean.
As the heat of the dry season
continues to intensify,
the reptilian residents of the Ilanos
bask along disappearing streams.
Capybaras hunker down
in what water remains.
For the yellow-headed caracara
the capybaras are an obliging,
moveable feast of ticks.
The floodplain that lured many
piranhas away from their home rivers
is now evaporating rapidly
trapping many.
Stranded and suffocating
the once fear some killer is helpless.
No one knows exactly why caimans gape
but they might as well be grinning
in anticipation.
The crocodilians move in and put
an end to the piranha's suffering.
But when the rains come again,
the carnivorous fish
will have their day.
It's now late May
six months since the Venezuelan savanna
has seen a drop of rain.
But a season of calamity for fish
is a season of plenty for birds.
Dozens deep at the water's edge
birds wait their turn at the buffet.
Each species has perfected
its own feeding technique.
Little distracts the voracious
birds from the feast,
but an uninvited guest is about
to get their attention.
It's Diega, in search of a
nice quiet shallow for mating.
Her arrival seems to elicit more
curiosity than fear,
despite the fact that
anacondas regularly eat birds.
It's almost as if they know that
the snake is an ambush hunter...
and won't waste her energy striking
at prey that can see her coming.
Indignant Orinoco geese announce
that this is no place
for an amorous anaconda.
And the stilts escort her
off the property.
Diega retreats, but with an anaconda's
characteristic lack of haste...
leaving this place to the birds.
Eventually, Diega finds a suitable
place to await her gentlemen callers.
It's likely that
the female anaconda sends out
come hither chemicals, or pheromones,
so that the males can locate her
using their tongues
as sexual divining rods.
Male anacondas are much smaller
than the females.
But with these giant snakes
small is a relative term.
He arrives to find the mating party in
full swing, but he's undeterred.
Several males have already wrapped
themselves around Diega.
It may look like her dance
card is full,
but sometimes a female will accommodate
up to a dozen males in a breeding ball
a phenomenon Jesus is now trying
to understand.
Breeding balls are made of one female
and several males
and the question is whether one male
gets to mate or several of them do it.
Is it the largest male?
Is it the smallest?
Is it the one that gets their first?
Is it the one that tickles her better?
The "tickling" is done
with the male's mating spur,
the last vestige of his
lizard ancestor's hind leg.
After mating, the male leaves a sperm
plug in the female,
but Jesus believes rival males
may be able to squeeze it out of her.
The key question
whether females are impregnated
by one male or many
can only be answered if
the snakes breed successfully.
Following her radio signals,
Jesus and Renee are thrilled to find
Diega has become the belle of the ball.
What comes next will test their
snake-handling skills to the limit.
Not only is gathering information
of snakes not easy,
but it is basically a race
against time.
Once the dry season hits
we're out there every day
trying to find as many snakes
as we can process.
Once we find breeding balls
it's not like catching one snake.
Suddenly you have three four
up to 12 snakes
to deal with at one catch.
So, that's a lot of work to do.
Back at the ranch, it's the males'
turn to do their bit for science.
Jesus takes blood samples
for DNA testing.
Eventually, he'll compare their DNA
to that of the offspring
to find out who fathered whom
that is, if all goes well,
and Diega has babies in the fall.
But that's far from certain.
She hasn't given birth in the
four years Jesus has followed her.
And she's up against the
worst dry season in years.
There's no telling
when the rains will arrive.
The inland sea has become
a mere patchwork of puddles.
Heat and crowding are already
taking a toll on the capybaras.
The caracaran once a welcome
parasite remover, has become a torment
the weakened capybara has little
energy to fight off.
The bird feeds with impunity on
the rodent's wounds,
which were inflicted by rivals.
Nearby, an opportunistic
predator lurks.
Known as the cougar or mountain
lion farther north in the Americas,
the puma finds easy and abundant
prey on the Ilanos.
These are especially
hard times for Diega.
Now pregnant
she must choose her waterholes well.
Some will disappear altogether
in the deepening dry.
And she won't survive for long if she
is exposed on the parching surface.
Just seven degrees north
of the equator,
with the summer solstice approaching
the Ilanos evaporates.
Scarlet ibises keep a close eye
on their sometime nemesis.
In waterholes turned sucking mud,
capybaras wallow and
catfish struggle to breathe.
With her water supply
running dangerously low,
Diega must now make
an excruciating pilgrimage
through the muck in search of shelter.
But the conditions only worsen,
and the next day finds Diega
in the shelter of last resort
under the baking mud itself.
Here she will wait for the rains...
which show no sign of arriving soon.
Some pregnant females
lie exposed on the surface,
where temperatures can
reach a deadly 130 degrees.
Many will not make
it till the rains come,
and their broods will die with them
a fate shared by many
on the scorched Ilanos.
On the parched plains of Venezuela,
the horizon rumbles
with the promise of rain.
The scientists have left the flooded
Ilanos to the capybaras,
not yet knowing if Diega or their
other pregnant anacondas survived.
Not until the rains begin to let up
can a worried Jesus take
to the air in search of his snakes.
When I go to find Diega
after the dry season,
I wonder if she had made it.
This dry season was so hard and so hot
that there was a good chance
she dried out.
But Diega has made it, surviving both
the drought and her seven-month fast.
She's claimed a bit of high ground
to await the birth of her babies...
only then will she eat again.
There will be other reptile births
this season as well.
All around, young caimans make their
debut on the Ilanos.
The baby crocodilians emerge
from their eggs
snub nosed and chirping.
Almost immediately, they set forth
under the watchful eye of their mother.
They are exposed
and vulnerable on land,
and waste no time making for
the relative safety of the water.
There, they congregate where their
mother can keep an eye on them.
Within hours of their birth,
they're pouncing after
their first insect meals.
By night, Diega prepares to usher
her own family into the world.
Unlike the caiman
and most other reptiles,
she gives birth to live young.
Diega has about 40 babies
representing about a third
of her body weight.
She also expels a dozen orange spheres
eggs that never developed.
The starving mother eats
some of her eggs.
These will help sustain her until
she's ready to hunt again.
She'll also eat stillborns
hastily backing off
if she gnaws a live one by mistake.
Anacondas do not care for their young.
Diega's babies are now on their own.
Within minutes, the first of the
newborns moves off,
ready to take its
chances in the Ilanos.
Perhaps half of
Diega's offspring will survive.
Even as the neighboring
rainforests disappear,
the anaconda continues
to thrive in these flooded lowlands.
This morning, the caimans find a free
breakfast on the riverbanks
Diega's remaining stillborns
which are greedily snapped up.
Some of her living offspring
lie low in the hyacinth
doing their best not to
attract unwanted attention.
It's time this newborn snake went
in search of its first meal.
In fact, a baby caiman might do nicely
But to hunt is to
risk becoming the hunted.
Usually, stealth and camouflage render
the anaconda invisible to the piranha.
Like a root adrift in a current,
the baby makes
its way through the hyacinth.
On rare occasions, though,
an inexperienced youngster
blunders into more open waters.
Another baby grabs this opportunity
to beat a hasty retreat.
But the Ilanos has not begun to exhaust
its supply of unpleasant surprises.
Like most cats
the ocelot's not a big fan of water.
But he'll suffer a dunking in the
interests of an anaconda lunch.
Long before they're full-grown
Diega's brood will be decimated.
Those babies have a
tough life in front.
They have a lot of predators.
As much as the big ones
have almost no predators,
it is completely the
opposite in babies.
Nearly every animal can take them.
While Jesus gets acquainted with
this year's crop of anacondas,
they get their first taste of him.
With each new generation,
Jesus is one step closer
to understanding
the mysteries of anaconda reproduction.
Like their parents
these babies will be numbered,
cataloged, and DNA tested.
Then he will return them to the Ilanos
with a mixture of trepidation and envy
When I let them go
I'm jealous I cannot glide
so graceful in the swamp as they do
and then spend their life there.
And I have this sense of, you know,
the kids go to college that
all the parents have.
They're out on their own
and I hope they do well.
Though science is beginning
to lift the veil
of terror that surrounds the anaconda,
many of the giant snake's greatest
secrets remain unknown.
In the continuing search for answers,
Jesus and Renee will have to probe
deeper into the recesses
of South America's jungles,
and there's just no telling
what they'll find.
I have no doubt that the giant
of giants of anacondas is out there.
Whether we'll find it is
a whole other question.
I've thought a lot about what to do
if we find this animal that is
too big for me to catch
but is too big for me to let go.
I don't know what I will do.
It will be some tough fight.
And I don't know who's gonna win.