Welcome back to Scary Animal Attacks!
Today’s episode takes us to the rubber tree plantations of the jungles of Indonesia, to
Jombi Province of the island of Sumatra.
The rain forest canopy is so dense here that the sunlight rarely reaches the jungle floor
in many places.
Human development carves into ancient rainforests making room for rubber tree plantations and
palm oil farms.
This expansion of human agriculture create a rapidly escalating conflict in the only
land in the world where tigers, rhinos, elephants and orangutans live together.
Some of the animal species here are diminutive versions of their counterparts on the mainland
of Asia and are only found here on Sumatra.
This island hosts 96 species of snakes, but the specific snake which is the focus of today’s
episode is the reticulated python.
On Friday, October 21st, of 2022, fifty four year old grandmother Jahrah said goodbye to
her family and indicated she was going to pick rubber from rubber trees in a stand of
jungle near her home.
Many people here go by a single name and members of the villages form tight knit communities
that depend on each other.
After grabbing her equipment, Jahrah headed out the door with her family expecting to
see her in a few hours.
By nightfall, Jahrah’s husband began to be very concerned.
She still hadn’t shown up so he went out to look for her.
In the rubber tree garden he found her sandals, jacket, head scarf and her knife she used
to collect rubber.
After being unable to locate his wife, he returned home and contacted authorities.
After rounding up a search party to beat the brush for Jahrah, they group headed back to
where her husband found her clothes and gear.
As they searched around for additional clues, a short distance from where her husband found
her clothes, a giant reticulated python with a foreboding looking hour glass shaped bump
in its body was located amongst the tangled litter.
The ominous realization began to set in that the lump in the snakes body just might be
Jahrah’s remains.
A little information is in order to understand the peril that Jahrah found herself in.
Reticulated Pythons are the largest snake in all of Asia, yes, including Bermese Pythons.
When they constrict prey, they can exert fourteen pounds of pressure per square inch, which
is easily enough to kill a person.
The largest example measured in at just under 10 meters in length and was caught in 1912.
It likely weighed well over 400 pounds.
As a python grows, it graduates from rats and other small prey to larger prey and have
been witnessed swallowing goats.
They have long, curved teeth which angle back toward the rear of their mouth that act as
a one way grip on its prey as it is swallowed.
A single large meal may take the python weeks to digest and for several days, it may be
unable to move until it’s meal is partially digested.
The search part immediately turned into a recovery party bent on pulling her corpse
from the ravenous reptile.
As they searched the tangle of roots, leaves and branches for the pythons head, one of
the volunteers lifted a forked stick to trap the snake.
In the video posted on our patreon account, which is linked below, he is shown pinning
the head of the snake to the ground while a machete armed assistant hacks it from its
body.
I have posted several pictures and a few video links pertaining to this episode on Patreon
for your viewing if you choose, but I warn you, the images and videos there are extremely
graphic.
I do not recommend viewing them if you are not ready to see death, as nature has no rating
system.
After striking the snake and severing its head, the villagers turned to investigating
exactly what the big bump in its body was.
They took out knives and began carving their way through the solid muscle body of the python,
which was a little under three feet around.
As they parted layer of tissue after another, they eventually reached the long and distended
stomach.
They cut open the stomach and the body of Jahrah, which had just began being digested,
was pulled out.
The worst possible outcome was now a certainty as her fate was apparent to every witness
there.
Being familiar with how reticulated pythons hunt, villagers described Jahrah’s struggle
in intricate detail.
They indicated that the snake undoubtedly clamped its massive jaws onto her and immediately
wrapped her in its muscular body several times over.
Once it had completely encircled her body, she would be unable to resist its powerful
contractions.
Each time she would exhale the python would have tightened its grip on her, further squeezing
her air from her lungs.
With each contraction the python’s death grip would rupture blood vessels and break
bones.
This process may have taken upwards of 30 minutes, depending on how hard she fought
the snake for her life.
Villagers who have witnessed similar attacks on goats state that the entire struggle may
have taken around two hours to complete, including her being swallowed by the snake.
There is no doubt her last minutes were terror filled and extremely painful.
Her body was recovered fully clothed and removed, along with the body of the python.
This would be a comforting place to end the incident, but it isn’t quite the end.
The villagers had previously pursued a reticulated python which was even larger than the one
who killed and ate Jahrah.
It was about 27 feet long, and when villagers piled on it to take control of it, it overpowered
several men.
Fearing for their lives, they were forced to release their grip on the snake and let
it retreat back into the rain forest.
This snake is still out there and can easily kill and eat another person, if it so desires.
The villagers are concerned that there are larger snakes in the rainforests nearby.
It is claimed that agricultural encroachment on their habitat has limited access to their
typical prey, and now the giant snakes are hunting in the agricultural areas, around
humans, turning them into potential prey.
After reviewing the facts surrounding this episode, I am left with a few questions for
you.
Do you think the reticulated pythons are beginning to target human prey, or have they been doing
it for eons?
Do you think that local agriculture is creating a situation where pythons will start being
so familiar with people that incidents like this will increase?
Is the cause for the recent uptick in human attacks by reticulated pythons due to loss
of habitat and typical prey?
Could you imagine a more terrifying way to die?
I will enjoy reading your comments so post them in the comments section below, and let’s
talk about it!