Pythons

[BA0701]

(05-18-2024, 04:39 AM)peter Wrote: MENDES

I've dozens of old books about Indonesia. When the Dutch were there (referring to the colonial period), not a few hunters, naturalists and biologists wrote about the incredible world they saw. Back then, the natural world was all but untouched. One of the first books I read as a child was 'Harimau'. As far as I know, it wasn't translated. The book was written by a hunter who really knew a few things about tigers. One of the tigers he never shot was 'Harimau'. He followed the tiger at intervals and knew more than enough to write a great book. I recently found and bought it. 

Back then, even professional hunters not always shot the tiger they were after when they had the opportunity. The reason was respect. The tiger they followed, judging from what I read, most probably knew more about the hunter than the hunter knew about him. During his quest, the hunter saw, and described, most animals of Sumatra. This large island not only had tigers, but many (smaller representatives of large) herbivores typical for southern Asia. He also saw crocs and pythons. Some of them were captured after they broke the secret 'Treaty' that existed between man and beast for a very long time. The treaty in which both promised to not molest the other. But a promise is different from compelling conditions. Meaning humans have been killed and consumed by large carnivores. Every time the treaty was broken, the killer was hunted by local people. Pythons well exceeding 20 feet have been seen by quite a few hunters and biologists in Sumatra, but the longest pythons (23 feet and over) were found on Celebes (Sulawesi). 

These days, the treaty I referred to is all but forgotten. The reason is the human population exploded. They need room. Forests are burned or cut and wild animals are on their way out nearly everywhere. In the early fifties of the last century, the Dutch and those who assisted them had to go. Not a few ended up in the neighbourhood where I lived. The grandfather of one of my friends (a neighbour) had a few skulls of wild tigers and the skin (and head) of what I later learned was a python. It was so long, I couldn't believe my eyes. Same for the stories he told me. His adult son, also from Indonesia, told me most of them were 'hunter stories', but the old man, in my eyes, was very sincere. This is the fate of many old people who were born and raised in a period man and beast were living in close proximity. 

In Surinam and Guyana, I visited people who caught and sold wild animals. In spite of the permit, most of what they did was illegal. But they knew things I was interested in and they had animals I had never seen before. One of them was a very large snake. I didn't see the head, but the pile of muscle before me was impressive. The snake had been caught by Indians upstream after yet another child had suddenly disappeared. Although anacondas not often attack humans, the Indians I met were positively afraid of it. The immense snake, most unfortunately, didn't make it to the (foreign) facility that was interested. Adult wild animals, and large predators in particular, often quickly perish when captured. They seem to 'know' what the future holds and leave well before their time. Intentionally? Maybe. Wild animals are enigmas.     

They are many stories about unknown creatures and anacondas well exceeding 30 feet, but I never found reliable evidence. However. The forest, in spite of the very serious efforts of those burning it every year, still is the largest in the world. There are no doubt regions never visited by those who write books. But a 21-feet snake exceeding 400 pounds in today's world? Very unlikely. And yet.

There are no 400lb snakes that I am aware of, captive or wild. There was a retic in captivity that set the world record, a retic named Medusa, and she was 25', weighing 300lbs, and was the longest and heaviest snake recorded. The thing is, with these enormous captive snakes, they are almost never healthy, due to over feeding. Some people get these large breed snakes, Burmese, Reticulated Pythons, Anacondas, and because they want them to be enormous, they over feed them. You can tell that this has happened in a few ways, firstly the heads will be a tiny compared to the rest of the snake, and it is easy to tell that a snake is overweight because the difference in the circumference of their tail and the area just above their cloaca is vastly different. The problems with snakes who have been fed for growth like this are numerous. One is due to the large amount of food being fed, they often get severely constipated, sometimes entirely bound up requiring intervention. 

This constipation is caused, in large part, because these extra large captive snakes rarely move, most often only moving when being removed from their enclosures for feeding or for cleaning the enclosure. They also don't move much, simply because of how severely overweight they are, not to mention that do not have any incentive to move, when all they have to do is lay there and poof food appears. This also leads to their bodies being over saturated with fat, the just are not burning it off.

Another issues with these overgrown snakes is that they are often times infertile, and they quite often become eggbound from the eggs that their bodies continue to naturally produce, this also requires intervention.

Most importantly, these overgrown snakes typically die well before their time, their bodies are not built to carry such weight, and eventually their organs will begin to fail them.

Here are some examples of what I am referring to. The first video is of world record holder, Medusa, and the second is of a snake named Twinkie. Twinkie was infertile, as well, you can clearly see how tiny her head is, as well, you can see the extreme difference between her tail, and where her body meets her tails. These are unhealthy snakes, and while I cannot speak for the status of Medusa, I can tell you that Twinkie died a premature death, which is really a shame. As you can see, at 300lbs, Medusa is also extremely overweight, and unhealthy.

As for wild snakes, the current record, in Florida, of a wild Burmese Python was a gravid female that broke 2 records, she was over 20', and as such was the largest Burmese ever captured in the wild, and secondly, she weighed 215lbs, also making her the heaviest Burmese captured. I will also provide that video as well. You can see, this girl has a normal sized (read enormous) head.

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