National Geographic: Land of the Anaconda Page #4

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for their share.

An underwater cleanup

crew will get the rest.

Piranhas, drawn as always

to a scene of carnage,

work their grisly magic.

Minutes later, all that remains of

the young capybara are the bones.

In a place where some lifetimes are

measured in minutes,

a lucky survivor clings to its mother.

He may have no more

to fear from his own kind.

But the capybara's enemies

on the Ilanos are many.

It's late afternoon in

the Venezuelan savanna.

Everywhere, anacondas are on the move,

taking advantage of cooler temperatures

to keep up with the receding waters.

Jesus and Renee savor these

last few weeks in the Ilanos.

Soon the rains will come,

making fieldwork virtually impossible.

Work in the Ilanos is really a

unique experience.

You can see the shape of the earth

like an ocean of savannah around you.

You have the feeling that those

animals that are out there

were there before Columbus

arrived to America.

I feel like this is where I belong.

Skimmers grab a

last meal as dusk descends.

The evening slant of light

signals rush hour in the Ilanos,

as the birds head home to roost,

further darkening the

sky with their numbers.

On a riverbank

a jaguar finds his last minutes

of daytime rest plagued by flies.

The big cat needs to rouse

himself soon and find a meal.

Morning finds a

massive female anaconda

looking for an escape

from the rising sun.

The drying river bed exposes muddy

crevices among the roots

cool, damp caves

where a snake might wait out

the last weeks of the dry season.

But the best laid plans of anacondas

are no match for Jesus

and his uncanny knack for

uncovering snake haunts.

This is the domain of an

anaconda named Marion...

an old friend with a

notoriously bad temper.

I think there's a snake here, guys.

Yup, a big one, too.

Big, like Marion big?

Probably, Marion, big, yeah.

If it's Marion,

she'll come straight for me.

She hates me.

Uh oh, she's Marion.

She already snapped at the pole.

She snapped at the pole already.

Renee will never forget her

introduction to Marion.

Yeah, when Marion bit me

it was kind of a surprise,

because I'd seen Jesus get bit

by snakes all the time.

He might not admit that,

but he gets bit a lot.

It goes with the territory.

I thought

Well, it can't hurt that much,

because it happens all the time.

He doesn't say much.

And she bit me, and yeah

it hurt like hell.

That's a huge head just full of muscle

it's just pure muscle.

And she got the

smallest part of my body,

and yeah, there's no denying it.

It hurts a lot.

Alright

Big snake, big snake.

Marion has always made her

contributions to science reluctantly.

Jesus is convinced she remembers

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