How do you feel about Anacondas?

If you are like most Oregonians, you probably don’t really know how you feel about a real, live sixteen-foot Anaconda, native to South America but taking a holiday in the Pacific Northwest, its acres of slithery flesh bending and contracting, its two eyes just inches from your nose…

Okay, maybe you can guess how you might feel about Anacondas.

Perhaps you’ll feel better about Anaconda babies.

You can find out at the Oregon Coast Aquarium‘s Swampland exhibit. Two Anacondas in a sizable glass case mark the entry to the exhibit, which also includes piranhas, alligators and a Burmese python, as well as more innocent swamp specimens like horseshoe crabs, seahorses and frogs.

The “mother” Anaconda is currently pregnant, and up to 25 babies are expected in a live birth some time in June. The babies will be placed on exhibit, as well.

That’s something I might have to see.

At the Aquarium last week, my young daughters (who apparently aren’t very afraid of Anacondas) pressed their faces up to the glass, trying to decide which winding, glistening orange and yellow body belonged to which snake. The snake’s blade-shaped heads, each a good five inches long, rose just above the water line.

I must admit, Anacondas are really quite beautiful.

As long as they are nicely contained in an exhibit, anyway.

Go take a look for yourself.

Swampland runs through the end of the year. But my guess is that those babies won’t stay babies for long.