Does a video show a 50 foot anaconda in river in Brazil? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A video claims to show a 50 foot anaconda swimming in a river. According to many versions of the video, it was filmed in the Xingu River in Brazil. The video has been shared by a number of highly followed social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook.

FALSE

The video as it appeared on a popular Twitter account can be seen below.

However, the video certainly doesn’t show a 50 foot anaconda. A search for the video shows that one of the earliest instances of the video appearing on the Internet is from April 2018 on YouTube under a heading that simply translates to “Giant anaconda crossing the road”, but does not disclose the location where the video was filmed. (The video was also uploaded a number of times in October 2018 and attributed to the flooding in Trinidad and Tobago during that time, but since the video dates back to at least April 2018, these claims would appear to be false.)

Looking at that earlier video, it is clear that the later instances of the video have had their dimensions altered to give the impression that the snake is bigger than it really is. The video has essentially been stretched out. Looking at the original video, it is clear that it was taken on a flooded road, not in a river.


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It is also clear that the snake isn’t 50 foot long. In the original video, the snake looks to be between 10 and 15 feet.

It’s unlikely that a video will show a 50 foot snake. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest snake in captivity was 25.2 feet. Unverified reports exist of even longer snakes, including one that apparently measured 33 feet, but this is still a relatively long way off 50 feet. There have been no reputable reported, verified or unverified, of such a large snake ever being seen in the wild or captivity.