A serious
bite from a large python or boa is the most unpleasant
and bloody that can be delivered by any non-venomous snake.
The speed and power of the strike, due to the muscular
structure of the snake's neck, means it's a very powerful
blow, while the six rows of recurved teeth embed deeply
penetrating flesh causing extensive bleeding. A strike to
the head is more than likely to stun the victim. If the snake
can coil around its victim, the weight of the snake tightening
its coils to trap the arms, and the shock of the strike will
cause the victim to fall to the ground, if not already there.
The snake doesn't need to find an anchorage point for its
tail, simply tightening its muscular coils will apply
sufficient pressure to kill, and there's not much chance of
escape. Clearly larger pythons and Anacondas can kill a human,
but swallowing them is a different thing altogether, a much
more difficult process. It is generally believed that the
shoulders of an adult male are too broad for a snake to
maneuver its jaws around, rubbish, in truth a 5.0 metre python
or anaconda can probably do this. Certainly, a child or small
adult, would cause few problems for a large snake. On the rare
occasions when an attack has happened, it is more than likely
a case of mistaken identity by the
snake.
South
Americans:
No matter
what Hollywood would have us believe, boas simply are not big
enough to be a serious threat to man. The only South American
snakes to reach the proportions necessary to kill and devour a
human are the anacondas, and probably the Green Anaconda is
the only one capable. It is a large and powerful, semi aquatic
predator of medium to large mammals and easily capable of
killing and potentially swallowing a small human. A human
attacked in shallow water by a 6.0 metre anaconda, weighing
over 100kgs, is probably just as likely to drown as die from
constriction. Given that this species feeds on deer, caiman,
peccary and capybara, it is probable that it could engorge a
small humans shoulders. In spite of this possibility attacks
are rare. Two first hand and trustworthy accounts of large
anacondas attacking from ambush positions were reported from
Colombia in 1978 and Venezuela in 1992. Clearly they were a
case of mistaken identity, the anaconda was waiting in ambush
for its usual prey, in both cases. Cases of people actually
being eaten are much rarer and confined to traveler's tales.
The patterning of an anaconda makes it virtually invisible in
shallow water, even clear water. Taking into account the low
human habitation in the anaconda's realm, it's no surprise
that there are few, if any, reliable accounts of humans being
eaten.
Africa
African
pythons, on the other hand are equally at home on land or in
the water. The first report of an African python eating a
human was published in 1707. A python was reportedly killed
and found to contain the body of an African. Since then there
has been numerous stories of humans being attacked by African
Rock Pythons. These include the story of a rock python being
found with the body of a dead woman in its coils, on an island
in Lake Victoria in the late 1920's or early 1930's, and a
case of a 13 year old youth being killed and swallowed by a
large python in Uganda in 1951, the snake was forced to
regurgitate its victim. Also attributed to the Southern
African Rock Python is a famous account from 1979, when a 13
year old goat herder was ambushed and killed. His friend ran
for help and the snake was prevented from eating the boy.
There is the case of a mine worker who attempted to catch a
large python in Transvaal, but the large snake got the better
of him. Despite escaping its coils, he died in hospital the
following day from a ruptured spleen and damaged
kidneys.
Asia
Often, on
the internet photos are published of a poor unfortunate
victim, protruding from the mouth or disemboweled stomach of a
large snake. Usually, despite what the caption and story says,
the snake is a Southeast Asian Reticulated Python, the species
most often implicated in human predation. There is a
photograph, involving what seems to be a female victim that is
almost certainly genuine. The close-up photo shows the python
in the process of swallowing the person. The fact that the
arms are pinned in the coils, there is considerable blood on
the victim's shirt and the head is well down in the snakes
throat, would suggest that this is a genuine case of a python
attempting, unsuccessfully to eat an adult human. There are
several earlier and apparently reliable reports of Reticulated
Pythons eating children in
Indonesia.
There are
also several well-documented cases of the keepers of large
Reticulated and Burmese pythons being killed, but not eaten,
by their pets.
email: mike at m-n-m-snakes.com (substituting the standard symbol for at)