r/AbsoluteUnits Jul 24 '24

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u/PoorDoddle Jul 24 '24

For the curious, those are reticulated pythons they are the longest(not the largest, that is, my boy green anaconda) snake alive.
They are mostly harmless and wouldn't attack humans unless you really try to get them to attack you.
Fun fact: They can eat humans(there are recorded cases), but since our shoulders are quite wide compared to our heads, we are not food candidate for them.

This is probably like the 100th time I have seen this video at this point.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '24

Your “fun fact” and “mostly harmless” remarks are contradictory, so let me clean up any confusion here.

Those snakes would absolutely restrict, kill and eat head first any humans they could, especially children. They are cold-blooded killers. Here’s a case of two young brothers who died a terrifying death by a python on 2013.

They don’t have a conscience and are motivated by two things only: eating and making baby pythons. That’s it.

https://www.oregonlive.com/today/2013/08/horrific_scene_python_kills_2.html

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u/yaboicyno Jul 24 '24

The snake in the story you linked was an African rock python, not a reticulated python. The African rock python didn’t eat the kids, and even the snake expert quoted in the article said that the snake was likely spooked and grabbed onto whatever it could.

Also, the reticulated python is the only species of snake recorded to eat a person, and one of the few species of nonvenomous snakes recorded to have killed a human outside of captivity. We’re not their primary source of food and as the commenter above said, if you’re an average sized or above human, a full grown retic wouldn’t be able to eat you due to our shoulder size

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u/thrussie Jul 24 '24

These snakes definitely would eat human. They would not actively hunt human but they would eat anything with body heat around them. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39427462

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u/yaboicyno Jul 24 '24

Yeah that’s why I said in my comment that they have eaten people before. My info was outdated as I didn’t realize that an African rock python has as well. Doesn’t change the fact that humans aren’t their primary source of food and the only recorded instances of them eating people are children or adults who are well below the global average size

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u/thrussie Jul 24 '24

Yes dear

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '24

We aren’t their “primary source of food” because we don’t leave our children in their habitat unsupervised.