Green Anaconda

The green anaconda (Eunectes murinus), common anaconda, common water boa, akayima, or sucuri, is a boa species found in South America. It is one of the longest and heaviest known extant snake species. Like all boas, it is a non-venomous constrictor. Green anacondas only have a lifespan of 10 years in the wild, although some specimens live longer when they are taken care of in captivity. Green anacondas live in tropical rainforests and tend to prefer shallow, slow-moving waters, such as streams, rivers and flooded grasslands. They spend most of their time in the water but are also found on land in thick vegetation.

Taxonomy

In the famous 10th edition of Systema Naturae of 1758, Carl Linnaeus cited descriptions by Albertus Seba and by Laurens Theodorus Gronovius to erect the distinct species murina of his new genus Boa, which contained eight other species, including Boa constrictor. The generic name Boa came from an ancient Latin word for a type of large snake. The first specimens of Boa murina were of immature individuals from 75 to 90 cm (2.5 to 3.0 ft) in length. In 1830, Johann Georg Wagler erected the separate genus Eunectes for Linnaeus's Boa murina after more and larger specimens were known and described. Because of the masculine gender of Eunectes, the feminine Latin specific name murina was changed to murinus.

Linnaeus almost certainly chose the scientific name Boa murina based on the original Latin description given by Albertus Seba in 1735: "Serpens testudinea americana, murium insidiator" [tortoise-patterned (spotted) American snake, a predator that lies in wait for mice (and rats)]. The Latin adjective murinus (murina) in this case would mean "of mice" or "connected with mice", understood in context as "preying on mice", and not as "mouse-gray-colored", another possible meaning of Latin murinus, as now often wrongly indicated for E. murinus.

Early English-language sources, such as George Shaw, referred to the Boa murina as the "rat boa". The Penny Cyclopaedia (Vol. 5) entry for boa explained: "The trivial name murina was given to it from being said to lie in wait for mice." Linnaeus described the appearance of the Boa murina in Latin as rufus maculis supra rotundatis [reddish-brown with rounded spots on upper parts] and made no reference to a gray coloration. Early descriptions of the green anaconda by different authors variously referred to the general color like brown, glaucous, green, or gray.

Common names for E. murinus include green anaconda, anaconda, common anaconda, and water boa. The word akayima and variants (okoyimo, okoimo) have been used by the local Carib people to refer to the green anaconda for centuries before its formal scientific description. The name akayima comes from the local Cariban languages, with akayi meaning "snake" and the suffix -ima describing largeness in a way that elevates the term to a separate category, giving a literal meaning of "The Great Snake".