A study published this week, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge and published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, concluded that today’s anacondas, snakes of the genus Eunectes, were already of similar size about 12.4 million years ago.
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To reach this conclusion, scientists analyzed 183 fossilized vertebrae from at least 32 snakes found in Falcon State, Venezuela, and matched this data with fossils from elsewhere in South America. From these remains, they reconstructed the body length of ancient anacondas, estimating that they measured on average between 4 and 5 metres, a level equivalent to that observed in species living today.
Andres Alfonso Rojas, a PhD student and Gates Cambridge Fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, and lead author of the paper, said he checked his calculations using a second method, called “ancestral state reconstruction,” which uses the snake family tree to reconstruct the body length of giant anacondas and related species that still exist, such as the tree boa and the rainbow boa. The procedure confirmed the theory.
Contrary to expectations that under a warmer climate and favorable habitat, these snakes would have become larger, the study reveals that the size of the animals remained stable, even after major environmental shifts, and even when many other “giants” of the South American fauna disappeared in the Miocene period.
The researchers suggest that the survival of these large snakes may be linked to their ability to adapt to aquatic and humid environments, such as rivers, swamps and tropical forests. This type of ecosystem, even with changes over millions of years, still exists in the remaining areas of the Amazon and adjacent areas.
The discovery that anacondas maintain their size for more than ten million years highlights the evolutionary resistance of these snakes and reinforces the idea that, among the giant reptiles of the Miocene period, they may have been the ones who knew how to adapt to environmental changes.