An Indonesian woman has been killed and swallowed whole by a 7m (23ft) long python, say local authorities.
Though such incidents are incredibly rare, this was the second python death reported in Indonesia in just over a year.
What happened to the woman?
Wa Tiba, 54, went missing last Thursday while checking on her vegetable garden on Muna island in Sulawesi province. A huge search was mounted by local people.
Her sandals and machete were found a day later – a giant python with a bloated belly was lying about 30m away.
“Residents were suspicious the snake swallowed the victim, so they killed it, then carried it out of the garden,” local police chief Hamka told news outlet AFP.
“The snake’s belly was cut open and the body of the victim was found inside.”
Gruesome footage has been circulating on social media in Indonesia showing the woman’s body being recovered intact in front of a large crowd.
How do pythons attack?
The python in Sulawesi is believed to have been a reticulated python.
They can reach lengths of more than 10m (32ft) and are very powerful. They attack in an ambush, wrapping themselves around their prey and crushing it – squeezing tighter as the victim exhales.
They kill by suffocation or cardiac arrest within minutes.
Pythons swallow their food whole. Their jaws are connected by very flexible ligaments so they can stretch around large prey.
When it comes to eating humans, “the restricting factor is human shoulder blades because they are not collapsible,” Mary-Ruth Low, conservation & research officer for Wildlife Reserves Singapore and a reticulated python expert, told the BBC in an earlier interview.
Do they eat other large animals?
“Pythons are almost exclusively mammal feeders,” Ms Low points out, though they do occasionally eat reptiles, including crocodiles.
Typically they eat rats and other small animals, she said, “but once they reach a certain size it’s almost like they don’t bother with rats anymore because the calories are not worth it”.
“In essence they can go as large as their prey goes.”
That can include animals as large as pigs or even cows.
Sometimes the size of the meal can be misjudged. In 2005 a Burmese python – the largest in the python family – tried to swallow an alligator whole in Florida. It burst in the process and both died, their bodies later being found by rangers.
But these opportunistic hunters can be surprisingly picky too. If they don’t see suitable prey, they can go for long periods on very little food until they see something big enough.
Source: BBC news
