The second sign was a highly bloated snake, found by a search party looking for Jahrah the next morning.
“During the search, the team found a giant python, which was 7 meters long. [22 feet] in length, who we suspected had taken advantage of the victim,” local police later said in a statement, referring to the victim simply as “Jahrah,” in keeping with the Indonesian custom of using a single name. “The team captured the snake.”
The search team killed the reptile and cut open its stomach, where they discovered Jahrah’s remains fully intact.
“The victim’s body was not destroyed when we found it inside the snake, which means it had recently been swallowed whole,” police said, after finding the reptile near the village of Betara in Jambi province of Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra.
Nonvenomous pythons generally prefer not to attack humans, choosing instead to feed on smaller animals, which they secure with a nonvenomous bite before suffocating to death by constriction and then eating.
But occasionally, humans have been known to become their prey as well.
Snake conservationist Nathan Rusli, director of the Indonesian Herpetofauna Foundation, suspects a reticulated python was likely to blame. The species is the only reptile living in Sumatra’s Jambi province that is large enough to have consumed an adult human, he told The Washington Post.
“They’re constrictors, so what they do is wrap their body around you. They will give you a death hug. You inhale and your body gets smaller, you tighten your grip and you can’t exhale,” Rusli explained. “The upper and lower jaw of a snake are connected by ligaments, it is quite flexible. They can swallow prey larger than the size of their head.”
Confirmed reports like these are relatively rare, occurring about once a year.
“Most of the cases are cases of farmers working on rubber and cocoa plantations in Sumatra and Sulawesi, most of the cases occur at night,” Indonesian snake expert Djoko Iskandar, a professor at the Institute of Technology, told The Post. from Bandung. Only extremely long reptiles can successfully hunt adult humans, and the smallest Indonesian python known to have been involved in a fatal encounter is still more than 18 feet long, Iskandar said.
Python-human encounters are becoming more common in Indonesia as people encroach on their increasingly threatened habitats, snake experts say.
In 2017, a 25-year-old villager on the island of Sulawesi was discovered inside a 23-foot-long python, suspected of killing him. The following year, this time on Muna Island, a A 54-year-old woman checking her corn crops was swallowed whole in an area of the country known for its population of reticulated pythons..
Deforestation, which deprives the snakes of their natural environment and food sources, is cited by experts as a factor behind the increasing frequency of fatal encounters between reptiles and humans. Since 2000, Indonesia has lost 18 percent of its total tree cover, mainly as a result of deforestation, according to Recent data from Global Forest Watch.
“If you destroy the forest, the natural habitat of these animals, where will they go?” Rusli asked. “Especially if an area is fragmented, they will need to cross human settlements to get to another part of the forest.”
In addition, garbage, rats and domestic animals associated with human life are easy prey for snakes looking to feed, another attraction posed by towns and villages that increasingly encroach on their habitat. Pythons are also more likely to be hungry as a result of increased competition from humans for the same food prey.
“It would be good not to demonize the snake too much,” Rusli suggested.
Dera Menra Sijabat in Bali contributed reporting.
