The real danger comes from the constricting power of these snakes. Don’t rip the snake’s mouth off as it bites.
Remember, even small pythons can cause nerve damage in your hand via the physical damage from the bite. It forces their prey to only move in one direction – into their mouths. The teeth are designed to not let you go. Take note that reticulated pythons here have 80 dagger-like backward facing teeth in 6 rows in their mouth. And that could be you if you’re not careful. They are sit-and-wait predators that essentially just wait for their prey to come by. Reticulated pythons in the wild tend to look a lot like this. It is an impressive camouflage, and chances are you won’t see them if you’re bushwacking your way through the forest. The reticulated python gets its name for the “reticulated” or netlike pattern on its back. There are plenty of things you can do to avoid an attack and get yourself out, if only you know how. This is even more important to remember if you happen to have one as a pet. They’ve had us on the menu for a while now. The long answer is that you shouldn’t dismiss these snakes as harmless. The short answer is no, unless you live in the jungles of southeast Asia. The big question for us to consider today is: Are these snakes a problem we should worry about? From our perspective, it’s an age old cat and mouse game, whose predatory danger has likely been passed down through generations in our mythical stories. If nothing else, if we’re within the size range of prey they eat, we could be on the menu. Given that large constrictors like this have been living with humans for thousands of years, it means the largest of these snakes probably could have it out for us. Now consider the fact that at 23’ these snakes can be man eaters and that they can get upwards of 30+ feet long. It’s a bit like putting a giant tourniquet on your whole body. If these snakes cut off blood supply quickly, the prey die much faster. When you crunch the numbers, the limiting factor is the flow of blood to the brain, not how long you can survive without breathing.
By placing pressure sensors inside its next meal (a large pig), we could see that the suffocation myth was busted. We were able to test a massive Sulawesi reticulated python in a lab setting.
In the show, I worked with physiologists who studied the power of these snakes. I hosted an Animal Planet show where I investigated the python that swallowed a young man named Akbar on the island of Sulawesi. Reticulated Pythons can eat an adult humanĮveryone always thinks constrictors like the reticulated python kill through suffocation. Oddly, it also lists the largest one ever caught in Celebes, Indonesia in 1902 at 32.75 feet – even though many scientists are skeptical of this historical report and think the longest ever may be a bit smaller. The Guinness book of world records lists the largest officially measured living snake as Medusa – 25 ft 2 in. However, no snake has been officially measured that long, and large specimens of these species are becoming increasingly rare due to urbanisation and illegal poaching for the pet trade. Biologists tend to agree that this snake could reach lengths of around 30 feet. The reticulated python does, however, hold the record for the world’s longest snake living today. They’re not the heaviest either – anacondas claim that title at over 500 pounds. How do we measure the biggest snake? Reticulated pythons are not the longest snake to have ever lived – the extinct Titanoboa currently takes that trophy at over 42’ long.
0 kommentar(er)
