On Sunday, a woman who worked at a rubber plantation in Indonesia went missing. While searching for Jahrah, 54, her husband found her sandals, headscarf, and jacket as well as her tools, according to Betara Jambi Police Chief S. Herafa. He then contacted locals to help search for her. The search crew found a 22-foot python with a bulge in its stomach.
After dissecting the python, they found Jahrah’s body inside the snake’s stomach. Her body was reportedly intact.
“During the search the team found a giant python, measuring 7 meters [22 feet] in length, which we suspected had preyed on the victim,” the local police later said in a statement. “The team captured the snake. The victim’s body was not destroyed when we found her inside the snake, meaning that she had only been recently swallowed whole.”
Reticulated pythons, which are non-venomous, kill their prey through constriction, and are able to climb trees by wrapping their bodies around the trunks and using muscular upward force.
“They are constrictors, so what they do is coil their body around you. They will give you a hug of death. You breathe in and your body gets smaller, it tightens its grip, and you can’t breathe out,” explained Nathan Rusli, a snake conservationist and director of the Indonesia Herpetofauna Foundation. “The top and bottom jaw of a snake is connected by ligaments, it’s quite flexible. They can swallow prey larger than the size of their head.”
While rare, similar incidents have previously been reported in Indonesia. The most recent documented cases of the giant snakes swallowing people whole occurred in 2017 and 2018.
“Most cases are cases of farmers working in rubber and cacao plantations in Sumatra and Sulawesi, most cases occurs at night,” Djoko Iskanda, a snake expert and a professor at Bandung Institute of Technology, explained.
Deforestation has been cited as the cause of some fatal snake attacks. With their habitats and sources of food under threat, and contact between humans and the pythons increasing, fatal encounters between the giant snakes and people have increased. According to data from Global Forest Watch, Indonesia has lost 18% of its total tree cover as a result of deforestation.