"I respectfully differ with Clark on the length of
the anaconda snake. The one he measured on the Morona River was 26 feet 8 and one-half inches. That is much too
conservative. The Peruvian skin traders who bring thousands a year to Iquitos tell me that anacondas quite often
measure up to forty feet. The Englishman, Colonel P. H. Fawcett, (who was lost while searching for a ruined city
he believed to be Atlantis) once killed an anaconda that measured at sixty-five feet. In the Beni Swamps of Madre
de Dios, Fawcett saw snake tracks which led him to estimate their length up to eighty feet. In the Beni also, the
Colonel saw an animal he believed might be Diplodocus, the eighty-foot reptile of twenty-five tons. This animal
he though might still be in existence as it was an eater of aquatic plants. which grow profusely in this region.
The Diplodocus story is confirmed by many of the tribes east of the Ucayali, a region covered by Clark (Clark 1953)."
Continued: Rainforest floor
This article was written by Rhett A. Butler [bibliographic citation for this page] and was last updated on the most recent date listed in the column on the right side.
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