This is kind of like the monkeys and apes thing where pedants used to be able to “correct” people who referred to apes as monkeys. As it turns out, cladistically speaking apes are just one kind of monkey (being more closely related to Old World Monkey than the latter are to New World Monkeys). If snakes are just legless lizards, there isn’t too much justification for insisting that other kinds of legless lizards aren’t snakes.
The dimensions that have earned the anaconda the title of king is its total body mass or its weight (the sheer physical bulk of it). The largest anaconda ever measured was almost 28 feet long with a girth of 44 inches. She wasn’t weighed at the time she was caught, but scientists estimate that she must have weighed over 500 lbs.
“It is eight metres in length and weighs about 250kg,” he said by phone.
Not 100% verified, yes, but hardly tall tales. So a 500# anaconda is possible.
But isn’t it the case that classic snakes form a real clade (within “lizards”), but the various random legless lizards that aren’t snakes are not members of that clade?
So snake doesn’t just have to mean “a lizard without legs”. Just like “ape” doesn’t have to mean “a monkey with no tail”.
Agreed that apes are a kind of monkey.
Also, it turns out that whales are artiodactyls! Birds are reptiles! Turkeys are from North America! Common names for animals were not assigned systematically! It’s a disaster!
I remember a number of years back that actress Sharon Stone and her (then) husband were touring a zoo somewhere and he was attacked, somehow by a Komodo Dragon. I read about it in the paper and the headline was “Giant Lizard Attacks Husband of Sharon Stone”. I’m ashamed to say I laughed , finding this one of the funniest headlines I’d seen in sometime.
Are we the only ones who have heard of Bob and Ray? (along with EDUB)
I hear that anacondas can be poorly cooperative unless you offer them buns.
True. But “lizards” don’t form a clade, and the name does not have taxonomic significance.
But it originally did. Glass snake is the traditional name for glass lizards. It was changed to reflect what was thought to be their taxonomy. But since “lizard” has no taxonomic meaning, the change was not justified on those grounds.
That’s my point. “Snake” and “lizard” and “reptile” and “ape” are common names with no taxonomic significance, so it’s not necessary to change them to reflect taxonomy.
Possible, yes. If you’re comfortable with that, I think that’s fine. But myself, I’ll stick with what is reasonably verified. It’s repeatedly been shown that people are tremendously inaccurate at measuring these critters ( which is actually harder to do than you might think - they don’t stretch out nicely for folks while alive, are hard to weigh and skins of dead ones aren’t very useful because they do stetch ). There are a lot of potential contenders circulating on the internet - so for example you can find plenty of recent stories about the 18’ Burmese python named Delilah in Georgia that purportedly weighs 400 lbs. But I’m kinda dubious on the accuracy of that report given that a recent 17’7" Burmese python killed in Florida weighed all of 164.5 lbs.
I don’t discount that some new heavyweight champion may be out there in the wild and I’d be thrilled to see one ( hopefully not eating Jon Voight ). But I’m waiting for real conclusive proof.
This explains Curious George.
I am so glad I read this thread. It was all so confusing before.
Komodo Dragon in close proximity to an adult human
There are some images on Google that make the dragon seem much larger but they are probably “forced perspective” photography.
That’s one of my favorite routines,
There’s “close proximity” and then there’s “scratching under the chin, coochiecoooo!” :eek:
That guy got a death wish or something?
I’m sorry, that’s negative 20 points.
This made me laugh so hard that my wife woke up in a panic thinking someone was attacking us.
Related question: why are large lizards so common in South and Southeast Asia and Australia? The largest lizards (Komodo dragon, water monitor, crocodile monitor and perentie) are all limited to those areas.
There are large iguanas in the Americas.
In Africa, I don’t know. Perhaps large land-based reptiles would be too easy a target for the many large predators?
He might get a painful bite, but someone’s taking the picture, so he’s clearly not alone and would have immediate assistance if the dragon attacked.
It’s more fun if you appeal to their sense of hunger by dragging meat behind you. 
Most of those are limited to islands or to Australia, where they have limited competition with carnivorous mammals. Also, monitors have a specialized anatomy including an effectively four-chambered heart that gives them greater aerobic capacity and allows them to be more active than other lizards. Monitors are more “mammalian” than other reptiles.