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Your support makes all the difference.An Indonesian villager has been swallowed whole by a python – the second such incident in the country in a year.
Wa Tiba, 54, left her home on Muna island to visit her cornfield on Thursday night, according to the Jakarta Post.
The field is about half a mile from her house, surrounded by cliffs, caves and a certain number of reticulated pythons – the longest snakes in the world.
These snakes normally feed on smaller mammals. Attacks on humans are supposed to be as rare as winning the lottery and being struck by lightning at the same time. Yet last year, a man’s body was extracted from a 23-foot python, in an incident captured on a gruesome YouTube video.
When Ms Tiba failed to return by Friday morning, her sister went to search for her alongside around 100 people from the village of Persiapan Lawela. They found only Ms Tiba’s footprints, her flashlight, her machete and slippers.
The snake was found a few dozen yards from Ms Tiba’s belongings. It was 23 feet long and so bloated it could barely move, with a large bulge midway down its body.
The villagers killed the snake and opened it up to find Ms Tiba intact inside the snake, clothed just as she had been when she went to check the corn.
A reticulated python secures its prey with a bite, then wraps its body around the victim, squeezing down until the victim cannot breathe, before consuming.
It’s so rare for humans to be eaten that it’s more common to see hoaxes. A single photo of a snake digesting a pig has been used to falsely claim attacks on humans in China, Africa and across Southeast Asia.
Washington Post
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