History: Underwater Fight With A 20 Ft Anaconda

While encounters between people and anacondas may be dangerous, they do not regularly hunt humans. Nevertheless, threat from anacondas is a familiar trope in comics, movies and adventure stories set in the Amazon jungle. Anacondas have also figured prominently in South American folklore, where they are sometimes depicted as shapeshifting mythical creatures called encantados. Local communities and some European explorers have given accounts of giant anacondas, legendary snakes of much greater proportion than any confirmed specimen. Applied loosely, the term "anaconda" may also refer to any large snake that "crushes" its prey by constricting.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary states the word is probably a modification of the Sinhalese word henakandayā, which is used to refer to a small slender green whip snake found in Sri Lanka. However, certain other literature state henakandayā refers to a now extinct constrictor once found there.