RETICULATED PYTHON: This super-sized serpent is the longest snake on the planet, and very nearly the heaviest*. The record length for a reticulated python is slightly longer than 33 feet. It is also the fastest growing of the large constrictors. Females, which dwarf the males, can grow to 12 feet or more in their first year. The reticulated python lives in tropical forests from India across coastal Southeast Asia to the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia. Not only is it the world's most widespread python, it is also the most variable in appearance, with coloration ranging from black stripes to pale yellow blotches and brown to bright orange backgrounds. An ambush predator, it waits in camouflage and then strikes its victim — usually a bird or mammal, like a small deer or monkey — with sharp, backward-curving teeth that prevent any escape. Next the snake wraps its muscular coils around the animal, coiling tighter with each breath until its victim's lungs can no longer expand or its heart pump blood. Once the prey is dead, the python unhinges its loosely anchored jaws and allows the meal to easily slip down its throat.

* The world's heaviest snake is the anaconda.

EPISODE 8 — THE BLUE WHALE'S TAIL (GIANTS)