A tourist guide in Brazil had a miraculous escape as a giant Anaconda leaped out of the water and attacked him.
Video footage captured by 38-year-old Joao Severino shows the Anaconda suddenly jumping out of the water and biting him.
Severino was leading a group of tourists on a boat along the Araguaia River in the central Brazilian state of Goias on June 30 when the incident took place.
The 20-second video shows an Anaconda coiled below the water, between two logs of wood. As Severino focuses the camera on the giant snake, it made a sudden lunge, terrifying everyone on the boat.
Severino is heard laughing in a show of bravado but is actually quite rattled after the surprise attack by the snake.
"I saw the snake on a stump and I said, 'Look, guys, an Aanaconda is over there, I'm going to film it for you to see,'" Severino is quoted as saying by the New York Post.
The Post said in its report that the snake bite did not penetrate Severino's skin. It identified the serpent as green anaconda, which is capable of growing up to 30 feet long and 550 pounds. A member of the Boa family, South America's green anaconda is the largest snake in the world.
Anacondas hunt wild pigs, deer, birds, turtles and even jaguars. The non-poisonous constrictors coil their muscular bodies around prey and squeeze their bodies until the animal suffocates to death.
According to National Geographic, females are much larger than the males.
Anacondas generally live in swamps, marshes and slow-moving streams, mainly in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon basin. They are slow on land but move swiftly and stealthily in water.
