Check this out, the original image without photoshop effect, here!!!

The original post come from here.

Rio Napo begins its source in the Ecuadorian Andes and flows into the Amazon river. Giant alligators, lizards, turtles and snakes (boa, anaconda…) live in this river.

The photo with the village in the foreground come from Amazon River ~~~~ not Rejang.

cause one day if we find out it’s real, and the pictures are gone, we get to say “I seen that snake on the internet”

Exceptionally large ectotherms (animals that do not produce their own heat, like reptiles), can display gigantothermy. What essentially happens is that there is a greater surface to volume ratio in these very large animals, which translates in them being able to maintain relatively high body temperatures compared to smaller animals with a similar shape.

This means that giant snakes much larger than those African pythons you mentioned are going to actually have less of a problem with losing body heat, since gigantotherms lose heat to the environment at a slower rate than smaller animals. Staying in the water would also not pose as much of a problem for the same reason.

Gigantotherms lose heat to and gain heat from the environment at a slower rate than similar animals of a smaller size. This effect allows some ectotherms to remain warm in cold environments, as well as preventing overheating in the tropics. Ectotherms that display gigantothermy actually have body temperatures and metabolic rates similar to endotherms such as mammals.

So basically these alleged giant snakes might be spared some of the heating problems you mention by the very virtue of being huge.

Alligator thanks, I stay (operate) in the Limpopo Province of South Africa and am a hunter which offers me a lot of time in the bush. I often come across and view pythons in the wild. The python you referd to was just over 4m long and it was disappointing as they had stayed for two weeks in an area that was known to have gaint snakes. The locals tend to exagerate the size of the snakes mainly due to fear.

Samson77, I am familiar with the photo taken in the Congo but as much as I want to, I cannot convince myself that the pic is anything other than a small snake in a stream, the water flowing is to fast and to white and clear and the rocks depicted in the photo would need to be the size buses even bigger if it were a river big enough to hold the size of the snake reported. To me it still looks like a stream. I am in constant contact with herps people and a friend studied pythons in the wild for 4 years. His largest python observed or caught was 4.5m and the largest prey taken was a wild goose. This in spending every day in the bush catching tagging and recording african pythons.
The asian pythons can exceeed an African Python in length and so can an ananconda. But again, an anaconda over 5m will be a huge heavily built snake (pythons are not as robustly built as anacondas) and would spend as they do most of its time in water where it would be easier for it to move and protect it from predators, it would also be immobile most of the time to conserve body heat. Pythons although spending a lot of time in water tend to stick to dry ground and lay in ambush of their prey, usually curled up and relying on camoflauge. Can you imagine a 100ft snake laying curled up in ambush, its prey which is generally very alert to their surroundings would immdiately see it, just by the girthe and lenght of its body, its silhouhette would be all to visible. To be invisible it would have to stay in water and you can imagine what havoc that would do to its heating system. It would have to leave the water constantly like a crocdile to build up its body tempreture.

Its not that I dont believe big snakes exist, its just that it becomes harder each day to believe they do. I spend to much time viewing, catching and talking to others to be really convinced by any of the 3 photos.