Due to their size, green anacondas are one of the few snakes capable of consuming a human, however this is extremely rare.Īt the Smithsonian's National Zoo, the green anaconda eats rats and rabbits about once a month. Females will sometimes cannibalize males, especially during breeding season. This giant serpent looked something like a modern-day boa constrictor, but behaved more like today’s water-dwelling anaconda. Adults are able to consume much larger animals, including deer, capybara, caimans and large birds. Juveniles tend to eat fish, birds and small mammals. They are opportunistic apex predators and eat a wide variety of prey. Green anacondas have slow metabolisms, and with the exception of breeding females, only need to eat once every few weeks. Like most snakes, they can detach their jaw to swallow prey much larger then themselves, though they are careful to weigh the risk of injury with large prey. They use their strong jaws to capture their prey, then use their muscular bodies to suffocate the prey before swallowing it whole. As members of the boa family, green anacondas are nonvenomous constrictors. Like all snakes, green anacondas are carnivores.
