Body of 54-year-old worker found in stomach of 7-metre snake on island of Sumatra
A woman was found dead in the stomach of a 7-metre python at a rubber plantation where she worked in Indonesia, according to local reports.
The woman, identified as Jahrah, 54, went to work on the plantation in Jambi province, on the island of Sumatra, on Sunday morning and her husband reported her missing when she did not return home that evening.
Continue reading...New Yorker accused of hiding large Burmese pythons in trousers while crossing from Canada in July could face 20-year sentence
A New York City man faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly attempting to smuggle three large snakes across the US-Canada border – in his pants.
Queens resident Calvin Bautista, 36, is accused of hiding three Burmese pythons while on a bus crossing into the US at the Champlain port of entry in New York state on 15 July 2018, the Associated Press reported.
Continue reading...Officer was able to fire one shot that injured 15ft reptile because its midportion, not head, was around the victim’s neck
A police officer in Pennsylvania fatally shot a 15ft snake in the head on Wednesday as it was coiled around a man’s neck while he was in cardiac arrest.
Just after 2 pm, two officers from the Upper Macungie Township police department responded to a call that a male with a snake wrapped around his neck.
Continue reading...Study finds pacific rattlesnakes, which can’t control their own temperature, prefer places where the climate averages 80F
Many species are suffering at the hands of a warmer world, but one California inhabitant seems to be enjoying hotter temperatures: the pacific rattlesnake. Their populations across the south-west are thriving, according to a study by researchers at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the University of Michigan.
The study found that when given the choice, rattlesnakes – which cannot control their own temperature and rely on the environment for warmth – actually prefer to live in places where the climate averages more than 80F, suggesting they’re likely to do well as the planet gets hotter.
Continue reading...Maryland home suffers over $1m in damage after cunning coal-based pest control plan backfires
A homeowner in Maryland tried to fight a snake infestation with coal, only to burn their own house down, causing more than $1m in damage. Nobody was injured.
Montgomery county fire and rescue officials notified the public about the blaze right after it happened on 23 November, describing a conflagration that left a “large two-three-story single family house with heavy fire throughout structure and roof collapse”.
Continue reading...Shopper Helaina Alati, who happens to be a former snake catcher, was luckily on hand to return the three-metre python to nearby bushland
A three-metre-long python has surprised shoppers in a Sydney supermarket by slithering along a shelf in the spice section with a Woolworths spokesperson saying it was a “slippery and rare customer”.
“Only in Australia!” Hilary Leigh wrote in a Facebook post when sharing a video of the large snake at the Glenorie supermarket in Sydney’s north-west.
Continue reading...It can’t claim to be native to Grand Prairie, Texas, but a 6ft west African banded cobra was believed on Friday still to be roaming through the city of almost 200,000 on the outskirts of Dallas after escaping from its owner’s house.
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Continue reading...The oldest snake in captivity – known only as 361003 – hasn’t been near a male python for two decades
Experts at a US zoo are trying to figure out how a 62-year-old ball python laid seven eggs despite not being near a male python for at least two decades.
Three of the eggs from the snake in St Louis zoo remain in an incubator, two were used for genetic sampling and snakes in the other two eggs did not survive, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The eggs were laid on 23 July and should hatch in about a month.
Continue reading...Queensland snake catcher says 80kg albino Burmese python found in Oxenford is the largest he has come across in 27 years
As a seasoned snake catcher, Tony Harrison is used to the people the claiming there is a five-metre snake on their doorstep. But for the first time on Monday, the caller wasn’t exaggerating.
“This was the largest snake I have come across in 27 years,” Harrison said. “The poor old lady who opened the front door to see it there got the fright of her life”
Continue reading...Laura Hurst was found Wednesday evening in a house owned by a local sheriff that contained 140 snakes
An Indiana woman has died after she was found with an 8ft python wrapped around her neck in a house owned by a local sheriff that accommodates a collection of snakes.
Laura Hurst, 36, apparently kept some snakes in the house in Oxford, Indiana, Sgt Kim Riley, an Indiana state police spokesman, said, according to a report in the Lafayette Journal & Courier.
Continue reading...Daily life is fraught with danger for people living in remote areas of a country where health funding is as scarce as specialist medicine
All photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham
In the vast jungles that cover the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world’s most invisible health crises burns on. The country’s extensive equatorial forests are home to numerous species of venomous snakes, but their habitat is shared by secluded communities that are being forced to look further and further afield for their resources due to poverty and the pressures of conflict and climate change.
It puts DRC at the centre of an issue Médecins Sans Frontières has called a “neglected crisis”: death by snake bite.
Continue reading...Australian science agency says there are a ‘negligible number of human deaths’ from snake bites in Australia
The popular suggestion that Australia is home to the world’s deadliest snakes is largely a myth, with the risk of bites and death far greater across Asia, Africa and South America, the nation’s science agency has said.
Herpetologist Ruchira Somaweera from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said the myth was born a few decades ago and came out of a study of the relatively high toxicity levels found in Australian species, such as brown snakes.
Continue reading...British specialist among those aiming to develop ‘next generation’ treatment that could help millions of victims each year
Scientists in five countries, including the UK, hope to find a universal cure for snakebite using the same technology that discovered HIV antibodies.
A new consortium of venom specialists in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Britain and the US will locate and develop antibodies to treat critical illness from snakebites, which harm nearly 3 million people worldwide each year.
Continue reading...Holidaymaker shocked to see stowaway python in her slip-ons on return from Queensland
As souvenirs go, it is a unique one. A woman has returned to Scotland from a holiday in Australia to discover a stowaway snake hidden in one of her shoes.
In an incident that will confirm the worst fears of visitors to Australia, Moira Boxall unpacked her luggage after the more than 9,300-mile journey from Queensland to find the small and very much alive creature curled up in her slip-ons. It even shed its skin during its voyage in her footwear.
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