That time, Will Smith helped discover new species of anaconda

In 2024, scientists announced the discovery of a new species of giant anaconda in South America. A National Geographic camera crew was on hand for the 2022 expedition documenting the new species — and so was actor Will Smith, who was filming for NatGeo's new documentary series. From pole to pole with Will Smith. Now we can all share in Smith's Amazon experience, thanks to the three-minute clip above.

Joined by venom expert Bryan Fry, we follow Smith's journey by boat with a team of native Waorani guides, as we scour the banks for anacondas. And they find one: a female green anaconda about 16 to 16 feet long, “pure muscle.” The Waorani secure the giant snake – anacondas are not poisonous but they do bite – so that Fry (with the understandably reluctant help of Smith) can collect a shell sample for further analysis. Fry says this allows him to identify the buildup of contaminants in the water.

That and other samples collected also allowed scientists to conduct the genetic analysis that resulted in the declaration of a new species: the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayama, which roughly translates to “the great serpent”). It is genetically distinct from the southern green anaconda (Eunectes murinus); the two species probably diverged about 10 million years ago. The range of the northern green anaconda includes Venezuela, Colombia, Suriname, French Guiana and the northern part of Brazil.

Smith's time in the Amazon also brought the arachnophobic actor face to face with a giant tarantula as scientists extracted the venom. His further adventures took him to the South Pole, where he crossed icy fields of ice; to the Himalayas, where he moved to a small village in Bhutan; to the Pacific Islands to record a lost native language; to the Kalahari Desert, where he hunted with the hunter-gatherer San; and to the North Pole, where he took part in an expedition to dive beneath the ice to collect scientific samples.

From pole to pole with Will Smith will premiere on January 13, 2026 and stream on Disney+ the next day.