[ noun ] large arboreal boa of tropical South America <noun.animal>
Anaconda \An`a*con"da\, n. [Of Ceylonese origin?] (Zo["o]l.) A large South American snake of the Boa family ({Eunectes murinus}), which lives near rivers, and preys on birds and small mammals. The name is also applied to a similar large serpent ({Python tigris}) of Ceylon.
Chilean officials asked if they could send a plane to get some eggs, and the Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago bought a duck each week for an 11-foot anaconda snake.
But when he got to the river he saw the anaconda had already crushed his son's bones and had started swallowing the body.
The anaconda, one of the world's biggest non-poisonous snakes, kills by crushing its victims, then swallows them whole.