Discovery Channel’s “Eaten Alive” special turned out to be a bit of a bait and switch.

Researcher and conservationist Paul Rosolie was attempting to get ingested by a giant green anaconda, but at the conclusion of the two-hour special, he had neither captured the 25-foot snake he went searching for in the Amazon nor gotten swallowed into the belly of the beast.

It was 70 minutes into “Eaten Alive” before Rosolie and his team caught a giant anaconda (measuring nearly 20 feet and 250 pounds), but he pressed on in the search for the monster 25-footer, which he had a brush with but was ultimately too big for him to restrain.

The actual eating attempt — which didn’t start until 20 minutes left to go in the special — took place outside the floating forest where Rosolie was searching for the giant snake and done with an anaconda already in captivity. Rosolie donned his custom-made protective suit and under the supervision of scientists, did manage to have his body constricted by the snake, raising his heart rate and making his breathing labored.

At one point, the snake did go for his head, and while its jaws went over his crush-proof helmet, it ultimately backed off, and when Rosolie began to feel his arm break (he had taken off some of his armor to allow for greater mobility), he called in his team to rescue him and pull the anaconda off.

Immediately after the special, viewers took to Twitter to voice their frustration with Discovery and for the anticlimactic ending.

Rosolie told The Post prior to the special’s airing that he wanted to do something that would shock people to bring attention to the plight of the anaconda and their habitat, which is being destroyed by mining and deforestation in the Amazon.

“I’m sick of watching forests burn,” he said. “It’s being destroyed so fast and bringing attention and bringing more people and action is really difficult, so I wanted to do something that would … cause enough of a stir to say, ‘What’s going on here?’”

It’s fair to say the special caused a stir — though perhaps not in the way Rosolie intended.