Random Photos Show What It's Like To Be Swallowed Whole By An Anaconda (15 items)

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  (#1) They Let You Kill Yourself

  The one thing that everyone knows (or thinks they know) about being eaten by an anaconda is that the giant snakes constrict your body until you finally give up, but it isn't actually squeezing the life out of you. As a python wraps itself around its prey, it's not squeezing the air out of it but waiting for it to exhale and then tightening the coil, gradually restricting the prey's breath.

  Anaconda's can't actually reach in and pull the breath out of your body, but they're the most patient predators on earth and don't mind letting you choose how long you want to put off the pain of your final terrible moments. 
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  (#2) Dying Could Take A Long Time

  Pythons can sense the heartbeat, so they know when their prey stops breathing. They can conserve their energy for the next stage - the swallow. Swallowing a live animal can be risky, you know this if you've ever put a mouse in your mouth (why did you do that?!) and since an anaconda is much bigger than you, it doesn't have to do a lot of fighting to trap you in its jaws and choke you out.

  Once anacondas coil around you, they leave most of the hard work up to you. For instance, how often do you breathe if you'll be constricted a bit closer to death with every breath? Should you just give up and die so you can end the existential and tangible pain of life? Or do you fight and probably make things worse? 
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  (#3) You Take A Few Weeks To Digest

  If you do get eaten you won't have to deal with a roommate in the snake's stomach because they can only eat one thing at a time. Snake expert Bryan Fry, a professor at the University of Queensland, has spent a lifetime studying these apex predators, and it's likely that he's actually watched an anaconda digest its prey. Fry says, "The python in Queensland will bloat further over the next few days as it digests.

  In two weeks it will start to slim down and in three weeks it will defecate a calcium ball, having absorbed the fat and protein, but not the excess minerals." At least you'll have some alone time. 
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  (#4) You Get Locked in Its Jaws

  The green anaconda has a special set of jaws that can unhinge in order to better capture its prey, and once an anaconda sights its target, it will grab the animal in its jaws, locking it in with its teeth. This is undoubtedly a painful experience. Anacondas are by no means chewing on anyone, but those teeth have to hurt, and while the snakes aren't venomous, they do bite into their prey with intense pressure that can crack bones. 
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  (#5) The Jaw Walk

  If mother nature is two things, she's scary and gross. No fact underscores that idea like the anaconda's "jaw walk." When the prey is caught, the snake "walks" its jaws over its prey, working the animal down its esophagus. Like other snakes, the anaconda's lower jaws are not fused together, allowing them to move independently of each other and stretch out, working around prey that is much larger than the anaconda's head.

  If you've ever watched someone win a hot dog eating contest then you know what this abomination looks like. Or, if that's not enough of a gross visual, imagine someone eating a never ending Twizzler without using their hands. 
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  (#6) Enzymes Digest You Fully

  After the anaconda eats you, its body passes you through multiple areas where you'll be broken down and turned into snake fuel. All of the enzymes and gastric juices slowly digest the prey, which passes into the small intestine. Then the liver and pancreas excrete and secrete powerful enzymes into the small intestine to aid the digestive process.

  The nutrients from the meal are absorbed in the small intestine.
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  (#7) Your Circulatory System Gets Wrecked

  If there's a guy who knows way too much information about how anacondas kill and eat people it's Bill Heyborne, a herpetologist and professor of biology at Southern Utah University. He notes that one of the things that happens when anacondas are squeezing their prey is the complete failure of their heart and blood vessels. “It turns out that the squeezing overwhelms the circulatory system,” explained Heyborne.

  “Blood cannot get to the brain, and the animal dies within seconds due to ischemia." So if you ever get caught by an anaconda maybe you'll get lucky and your heart will explode. 
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  (#8) At Best You Could Drown

  There's a very good chance that if you're in the position to be killed and eaten by an anaconda that you're in the anaconda's natural habitat. Since anacondas typically constrict their prey in the water, drowning is a common cause of death. Which makes sense, if you're traipsing around a shallow pool of water and you become entangled in an anaconda's body, you're not exactly going to be able to control which way you're facing.

  Which is the worse death, drowning face down in a muddy puddle while being constricted by a large snake, or having a wet head, but clean lungs while a snake waits for you to slowly die?
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  (#9) They Change Their Bodies To Fit Your Meat

  Once you/the prey is dead, anacondas don't chew, or wait for your body to decompose, they simply swallow you whole. Because they have large ligaments on each side of their mandibles and mobile joints in their jaws they can open their mouths wide enough to get around large prey, whether it be person, capybara, or a deer.

  Their stretchy skin and lack of sternum allows their body to change shape to accumulate their dinner, which makes that one scene in Anaconda seem much more frightening in retrospect. 
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  (#10) Your Bones Break

  In December 2014, The Discovery Channel aired a special called Eaten Alive, where Naturalist Paul Rosolie was to be eaten by a green anaconda for our enjoyment. Even though he wore a set of “snake-proof” body armor designed to withstand the snake’s fangs, constriction and digestion he still ended up finding out the hard way that mother nature can't be so easily resisted. Initially the snake didn't want to eat Rosolie and his robot suit, but when it did attack it began constricting him so hard that Rosolie panicked because the snake was breaking his arm.

   "I felt the blood draining out of my arm, and she started really flexing the bone and I felt it about to break, I had to call it off.” Because anacondas don't really chew, the easiest way for them to crunch you up into a dissolvable goo is by breaking your bones into mush.
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  (#11) If You're Regurgitated You'll Probably Both Die

  Because anacondas (and really all constrictors) are only built to swallow, not puke, if anything is regurgitated it does major damage to their bodies. There's an inherent risk in swallowing a large creature like a human, or a deer, and while it takes time (up to two or three weeks) to swallow the creature, it takes even longer to regurgitate it. With the time the anaconda takes to regurgitate its prey, it will be exhausted, and it actually runs the risk of being so tired that it doesn't have the muscle power to pass its prey out completely - meaning that it would get stuck right where the snake can't breathe.

  And even if the snake does manage to regurgitate its prey completely and live, the prey would still likely die from their injuries. 
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  (#12) You Can Hear the Snake Eating You

  While this isn't the most horrifying part of being eaten alive by a giant snake, it's definitely in the top five reasons to not go to the jungle on vacation. According to Paul Rosolie, the scientist who thought it would be a great idea to let a snake eat him on television, when he was finally in the maw of the anaconda he fully realized how disgusting it was to be eaten alive.

  Rosolie noted that when the animal’s mouth opens over his head, you can hear it “gurgling and wheezing” in anticipation. 
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  (#13) You Go In Head First

  Even though audiences have been delighted and horrified to see actors eaten whole by snakes that kind of Hollywood tomfoolery just isn't true. That's right, the studio system has pulled the wool over your eyes yet again. After failing to be eaten by a snake and made fun of for it on national television, professional prey Paul Rosolie set the record straight on how anacondas prefer to chomp on their living meals.

  "You do have to go head first. If you think of a deer, anacondas eat deer all the time. A deer’s head and neck are very narrow and then [the body gets wider]. An anaconda slips over that very nicely."
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  (#14) You're Most Likely To Get Eaten At Specific Times

  You'll probably be safe enough in the wild swampy areas anacondas tend to inhabit if you venture there in the daytime. Indeed, the large snakes typically prefer to hunt and travel in the early evening or at night. The cover of darkness helps them stalk prey more efficiently and their camouflaged skin blends perfectly with river marshes.

  You can also feel relatively protected if you venture into anaconda territory during the dry season; they tend to bury themselves in mud to escape the heat.
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  (#15) You'll Only Be Attacked In Certain Situations

  Anacondas are known as man-eaters, but truly these snakes don't regularly attack humans. In fact, humans and anacondas rarely interact in the wild; deer and elk are more preferable food sources. However, humans who encroach on the predators' territory voluntarily seek danger. When scientist Paul Rosolie decided to film himself being eaten by an anaconda in December 2014, he had to force the female snake to attack him. Initially the large creature tried to flee because Rosolie seemed scary. 

  If you'd like to avoid being swallowed by an anaconda, don't taunt the beast.

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