Suddenly she was gone: Jahrah (54) from Indonesia suddenly went missing. The woman had been alone on a rubber plantation and simply did not return from work on Sunday. Her husband began a search that same evening. He found her sandals, headscarf, coat and her tools. His wife was gone.
The police arrived on Monday morning. “When the security team and local residents searched the plantation, we found a seven-meter-long python,” the local police chief told Indonesian news site Detik. And the constrictor had apparently just devoured something big.
A terrible suspicion arose. The officials killed the animal, cut it open and made a gruesome find. “We found the victim’s body in the animal’s stomach,” the police chief said. Jahrah’s body was almost intact.
The only species that can devour humans
Everyone who knew her is in shock, the village chief of Betara on the island of Sumatra said. The agony lasted about two hours, he said. That’s how long it took the animal to bite, ensnare, choke and eat Jahrah. The snake isn’t even the largest in the area. Presumably, animals with a length of more than eight meters have already been observed.
Snake guardian Nathan Rusli suspects that a reticulated python is responsible for Jahrah’s death. “This species is the only reptile living in Sumatra’s Jambi Province that is large enough to swallow an adult human,” he told the Washington Post.
Snake has flexible lower jaw
Pythons don’t kill their victims with poison, they strangle them. However, its consumption by humans is extremely rare – but still possible. The snake has two flexible lower jaws that it can detach from the upper jaw. This allows the animal to open its mouth wide enough for a human.
Normally, reticulated pythons feed on birds and mammals such as rats. Sometimes monkeys and wild boars are also on their menu.
Two people were killed by a python in Indonesia in 2017 and 2018. Experts suspect that such incidents have something to do with deforestation. The snakes are deprived of their natural environment and food sources. Since 2000, Indonesia has lost 18 percent of its total tree population, largely due to deforestation, recent data from Global Forest Watch shows. (nab)