MONSTER QUEST: Giant Killer Snakes

History Channel - Original Air Date: 6/25/08

Do giant anacondas up to 150 feel long live in the jungles and rivers of Venezuela, South America?  This new MonsterQuest show covers much of the same ground covered by Josh Gates in Destination Truth.  (There are enough programs of this type now that there's starting to be a lot of overlap.)  Expert snake hunters go out looking for such monsters.  One villager claims a 45 foot snake killed his 13-year-old cousin 55 years ago.  Naturally, there are no photos.  New internet photos seem to show giant snakes swallowing people, but are the pictures real?  One expert sets up game cameras to see how bad the snake infestation is near Miami.  Many pet pythons and boas escaped during a hurricane several years back.  Another set of experts hauls a special sonar camera south to peer into Venezuelan rivers where snakes may hide.  Analysis of the big snake photos seems to indicate that one is probably fake, the other possibly real.  One expert says a 30' python could open its mouth 2-3' wide -- wide enough to swallow a human being.  In Venezuela, neither the camera traps nor the sonar finds a monster snake.  The everglades camera, though, does capture a 12-foot-long albino snake -- not a giant, bur further proof of the encroachment of wild former pets into human territory.