Etymology

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Anaconda

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about snakes. For other uses, see Anaconda (disambiguation).
Anaconda
Temporal range: Miocene–recent[1]

Green anaconda (E. murinus)

Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Boidae
Subfamily: Boinae
Genus: Eunectes
Wagler, 1830[2]
Type species
Boa murina
(Linnaeus, 1758)[2]

Range of Eunectes
Synonyms
Draco Oken, 1816
Anacondas or water boas are a group of large boas of the genus Eunectes. They are a
semiaquatic group of snakes found in tropical South America. Five extant and one
extinct species are currently recognized, including one of the largest snakes in
the world, E. murinus, the green anaconda.[3][4][5]
Description
Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to
one species, in particular, the common or green anaconda (Eunectes murinus),
[citation needed] which is the largest snake in the world by weight, and the second
longest after the reticulated python.[citation needed]

Origin
The recent fossil record of Eunectes is relatively sparse compared to other
vertebrates and other genera of snakes. The fossil record of this group is effected
by an artifact called the Pull of the Recent.[6] Fossils of recent ancestors are
not known, so the living species 'pull' the historical range of the genus to the
present.

Etymology

An anaconda skeleton at the Redpath Museum

The name Eunectes is derived from Ancient Greek: εὐνήκτης, romanized: eunēktēs,
lit. 'good swimmer'.

The South American names anacauchoa and anacaona were suggested in an account by
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera. The idea of a South American origin was questioned by
Henry Walter Bates who, in his travels in South America, failed to find any similar
name in use. The word anaconda is derived from the name of a snake from Ceylon (Sri
Lanka) that John Ray described in Latin in his Synopsis Methodica Animalium (1693)
as serpens indicus bubalinus anacandaia zeylonibus, ides bubalorum aliorumque
jumentorum membra conterens.[7]

Ray used a catalogue of snakes from the Leyden museum supplied by Dr. Tancred
Robinson. The description of its habit was based on Andreas Cleyer, who in 1684
described a gigantic snake that crushed large animals by coiling around their
bodies and crushing their bones.[8] Henry Yule in his 1886 work Hobson-Jobson,
notes that the word became more popular due to a piece of fiction published in 1768
in the Scots Magazine by a certain R. Edwin. Edwin described a 'tiger' being
crushed to death by an anaconda, when there were never any tigers in Sri Lanka.[a]

Yule and Frank Wall noted that the snake was a python and suggested a Tamil origin
anai-kondra meaning elephant killer.[10] A Sinhalese origin was also suggested by
Donald Ferguson who pointed out that the word Henakandaya (hena lightning/large and
kanda stem/trunk) was used in Sri Lanka for the small whip snake (Ahaetulla
pulverulenta)[11] and somehow got misapplied to the python before myths were
created.[12][13][14]

The name commonly used for the anaconda in Brazil is sucuri, sucuriju or sucuriuba.
[15]