New species of giant green anaconda discovered in never-before-seen footage

This is Ecuador’s Wild Wild West.

Never-before-seen video shows the dramatic moment that scientists encountered a new anaconda species while filming the National Geographic travel series “Pole to Pole with Will Smith.” The footage was captured last year, but was only recently released to the public.

The newly named northern green anaconda or Eunectes akayima is reportedly the largest in the world, capable of exceeding lengths of 20 feet — with anecdotal reports of serpents measuring 25 feet long.

The wild clip shows the host and “I Am Legend” actor cruising down a river with venom expert Bryan Fry and Indigenous Waorani guides in an area of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where researchers were sampling the snakes in 2022 for a genetics study, Livescience reported.

All of a sudden, they happen across one of the behemoth constrictors resting on the bank. That’s when their native fixers jump on the serpent to immobilize it while Smith, 56, looks on in awe.

“Let them try and control this,” Fry remarks as the “Bad Boys” star remarks, “That’s gigantic!”

The biologist, who teaches toxicology at the University of Queensland in Australia, estimated that the particular anaconda measured around 17 feet long — around the size of a small SUV.

At one point, one of the indigenous guides exclaims, “Hold her carefully, she could escape,” as the water monster attempts to wriggle free.

Fry then enlists the A-lister to help take a scale from its belly so they could “measure the accumulation of pollutants in the water.”

Smith initially turns down the proposition, confessing he was a bit “nervous,” but ultimately obliges after some encouragement from Fry.

The clip concludes with the Oscar-winner helping wipe debris away from the serpent’s belly, before Fry snips a scale and places it in a vial, prompting Smith to breathe a sigh of relief.

“There’s our sample. We can do all the research on this animal with just that one tiny little piece,” exclaimed Fry.

“Pole to Pole with Will Smith” premieres January 13 on Disney+.

The scale sample, and others harvested in 2022, revealed that green anacondas, which were previously thought to all belong to one species, are actually two distinct species that diverged 10 million years ago.

They are Eunectes murinus, the already-identified southern green anaconda, and Eunectes akayima, the northern green anaconda.

While similar looking, the two species differ genetically by 5.5% — for reference, the DNA discrepancy between human and ape clocks in at approximately 2%.

“Finding a new species is so often not a case of actively searching but rather having rigorous scientific process in place so that serendipity can strike,” Fry told Livescience. “The research into the genetics of the iconic green anaconda is textbook in this regard.”

The two occupy different geographic regions, too.

The Northern slitherer resides in the Amazon’s northern basin, encompassing Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Its southern counterpart, meanwhile, occupies Amazon’s southern basin, spanning Brazil, Peru and Bolivia and French Guiana.

Both species of anaconda — which is the world’s heaviest snake, weighing in at up to 550 pounds — reside in wetlands and rivers, where they pursue large prey such as capybaras, caimans and deer.