New species of anaconda discovered in Amazon

STORY: It was thought that there was only one species of green anaconda in the wild, the Eunectes murinus, but the scientific journal Diversity this month revealed that the new "northern green anaconda" belongs to a different, new species, Eunectes akiyama.

Fry - an Australian professor of biology at the University of Queensland who for almost 20 years has been investigating anaconda species found in South America - told Reuters the discovery allows them to show that the two species split from each other almost 10 million years ago.

Although green anaconda snakes are very similar visually, there is a genetic difference of 5.5%, which surprised the scientists.

“That snake is very big snake. It’s a little hard to judge the length, it’s certainly over 20 feet. I think to call it 26 feet may be a little bit of an exaggeration but it’s definitely one of the biggest anacondas ever filmed,” said Fry.