Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is it true that female anacondas eat males anacondas after breeding? i know they breed in mateing balls and eat caimen and turtles but other anacondas?

It is not ritualistic but it can happen. I know my anaconda will eat other snakes. It is not something females just do though after mating. If it were a male that was larger than a young female...it would probably eat it if it were hungry. But I don't know this for sure because I don't want to buy another anaconda to find out. I have seen mine eat garter snakes. Don't try that though.

` That's a loaded question, so...
` Any animal that eats meat, carnivore or omnivore, will resort to cannibalism, when starving. Even Homo sapien sapien ( what a stupid name for our sub-species ), will do so.
` That reminds me of the legend that most of the automobile salespeople in California are descendants of the survivors of the Donner party.
` Anyway, if the male does his job correctly, the female pauses to have a cigarette, after mating. This allows the male to make his escape.
` Seriously, each animal is an individual, and behaves as one. Captivity enhances this ability to behave differently than the stereotypical model. So, some will, some won't.

`

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It's pretty rare, but it does happen on occasion...watch out, guys, it's a risky business sometimes...

RO

That conda looks like its dead. Is it??---Eric---

Yes - it was actually eaten by the female unobserved - we put the breeding ball together in an enclosure, as initially caught, so that they could keep doing what they were doing, while we collected data. When we went to get her to release her and the males (the enclosures were about 1/2 mile from the my house), we began to pick her up, which upset her enough to regurgitate her most recent meal (this is too common after a wild anaconda has just eaten, since they feel too vulnerable stuffed with a recent meal), and...voila. That's when the photo was taken.

I think DFR is giving car salesmen way too much credit...
At least he didn't say lawyers, LOL

RO

` No, not lawyers. They multiply by fission, like most bacteria.
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