Fawcett Giant Anaconda |
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Surveying the Amazon basin for the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1907, Maj. Percy Fawcett could not at first credit local tales of outsize snakes inhabiting the swamps and rivers. But, as he was to write in his memoirs, personal experience convinced him they were true. Fawcett and his Indian crew were slowly drifting down the sluggish Rio Abuna when, almost under the bow of their flimsy boat, . . . there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle as the creature began to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to aim smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked head. At once there was a flurry of foam, and several heavy thumps against the boat's keel, shaking us as though we had run on a snag. . .. We stepped ashore and approached the reptile with caution. It was out of action, but shivers ran up and down the body like puffs of wind on a mountain tarn. As far as it was possible to measure, a length of forty-five feet lay out of the water, and seventeen feet in it, making a total length of sixty-two feet.On a return trip to London, Fawcett was branded a liar for his claim that he had bagged a 62-foot anaconda. That animal, scientists declared, could not possibly measure more than about 45 feet; therefore the observer's story was fantastic. (Bernard Heuvelmans, On the Track of Unknown Animals , pp.284-86) Comments (0)
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