What is the heaviest snake in the world?

The heaviest snake in the world is the green anaconda. Its enormous girth and muscular body give it greater mass than the longer but more slender reticulated python, the snake generally recognized as the world’s longest.

Green anacondas are native to tropical South America and spend much of their time in rivers, swamps, and flooded forests. Females are substantially larger than males. Mature females commonly reach around 4.6 metres, while exceptionally large, well-documented individuals can exceed 5 metres and weigh close to 100 kilograms.

The key distinction is weight versus length. Reticulated pythons may stretch farther from head to tail, but green anacondas are far bulkier. Some captive Burmese pythons have also reached extraordinary weights, so record claims can depend on whether the comparison covers wild animals, captive specimens, or verified measurements. In standard natural-history usage, however, the green anaconda is the canonical answer for heaviest living snake.