The other night, my son was watching a nature “documentary” on Netflix, one I gather had been on the Discovery Channel some years ago. The documentary showed a staged re-enactment of a green anaconda suffocating and then eating a grown man.
Again, this footage was clearly staged. The guy being eaten was definitely just an actor.
Regardless, my son came away believing anacondas really CAN kill and swallow a grown man. I told him that this documentary seemed rather sensationalistic to me, and that I wouldn’t treat it as real science. I told him I doubted whether even large constrictors could kill or eat me.
I’m no authority on reptiles, but my educated guess is that even large anacondas and pythons would be reluctant to attack a grown man, except in self-defense or in desperation.
Like ANY predator, I figure an anaconda is an opportunist. I suppose that IF a VERY large, VERY hungry anaconda came upon a child or a petite woman, and** IF ** the snake thought it had the element of surprise, it MIGHT try to make a meal of that human. But for the most part, I’d expect an anaconda to look at a human and think, “There are easier pickings out there… maybe a nice capybara…”
But now the factual question: ARE there documented cases of large constrictors killing and/or eating humans?
Believe me, I have searched the web, but that hasn’t helped me find reputable sources of information. There are plenty of YouTube videos that look phony to me, plenty of sensationalistic sites making dubious claims, but not many sites that look authentic.
Any genuine herpetologists out there? Or can someone steer me to news accounts from credible journalists?
Kill – yes. Swallow – no, for any human larger than a child. Snake jaws are capable of incredible distension, but no snake I’ve ever handled (including pythons and anacondas 20+ feet) could deal with adult human shoulders.
I guess I must include the usual caveate “I’m talking about average size humans, not possibilities from the far end of the bell curve”.
Could an anaconda manage to wrap around/constrict an alert adult? I mean I’m sure you could just run (right?), but what if you where trapped in a 20x20 room?
Large constrictors are definitely capable of attacking and killing humans, even adults. The problem is in swallowing them. Constrictors usually start swallowing prey at the head end, and can’t get past a human’s shoulders. I’m not aware of documented cases of a large constrictor managing to swallow an adult human.
Some time ago I attended a presentation by a researcher who was doing a study of anacondas on the Orinoco. She showed a pie chart of documented prey items. As I recall, the largest proportion was capybara. But she had a thin slice labeled “field assistant.” One of her field assistants, a young woman, was attacked by an anaconda during the study and might well have been killed if others hadn’t been present and able to extricate her.
Unlike mammalian predators, snakes aren’t intelligent enough to recognize humans as especially dangerous. To them, we’re just another large mammal. If they think a particular human is within their prey size range, they may well attack.
Fifteen or so people have been constricted to death in North America in the last 20 years. In contrast only 10 mountain lion fatalities during the same period. I do not think any current species can swallow an adult, but your son…a bit of fear is justified.
Anacondas hang out in swamps where a person might have limited mobility in mud and thick vegetation. If one managed to get its coils around you you could well be in trouble.
If they manage to get their mouth on you then you’ve got a problem. It’s filled with small backward-facing teeth, so once they lock on, you’re not likely to make an escape before they get a chance to start wrapping around you. This is the standard attack method for most large constrictors, since it’s hard to get a few coils wrapped around any non-compliant prey animal unless they tether it with their mouth first.
Any of the larger constrictor species are capable of killing an adult human. It isn’t necessary for the human to be mobility-impaired, sleeping, or anything less than fully attentive. The snake strikes and grasps any handy part of the body in its mouth and instantly (really, really quickly for such a heavy-bodied animal) throws a loop of itself around the prey. The exact location of this first loop isn’t important. The snake continually re-positions itself, moving coils and repositioning them, working toward encircling the chest. Once this is achieved, the prey is only able to exhale; the snake constricts and prevents inspiration. Suffocation results.
Back in the day, we had an informal rule about manipulating, feeding, cleaning, etc. the larger snakes. We used a buddy system whenever the snake exceeded 8 or 9 feet. So any time you opened a cage of any specimen above that size, you made sure there was another person in the room. Because a snake that size could certainly kill you. Of course, if it first struck your hand and threw a coil onto your arm, you might be able to quickly shake or unwrap it and escape. You’d have some really nasty lacerations, but you’d survive. Or if you didn’t escape, if you had presence of mind, you might even open your pocketknife and cut off its head before you passed out. If, of course, you still had at least one arm free. But those would be fortuitous outcomes and you could not guarantee that luck would be on your side on any given day. Having another person present meant help uncoiling the snake, or someone else to take that final measure before you succumbed.
As Colibri implied, snakes are not necessarily good at judging whether you may be too big to swallow. Killing you and giving it a try may be the default, depending on season, temperature, time since last meal, and other factors. But being dead and unswallowed will likely be little comfort to you, so prevention would be my personal preference.
More seriously at least respect the pet anaconda if you ever run into some idjit that owns one. My understanding ( everyone I ever knew with a constrictor had a relatively mild tempered Burmese Python ) is that the temperment of most won’t likely be that much better than that of their wild cousins. Better to be properly respectful of any large constrictor, but anacondas have particularly bad reputations when it comes to being handleable.
Temperament has relevance to striking/biting behaviors, but pythons and anacondas do not kill by biting. Some species are more or less tractable on handling, as are different individuals. But constriction is associated with feeding, and it is the only way one of these snakes might kill a human. Even intractable snakes only infrequently constrict handlers. But if one does, that “two person” rule sure is handy.
An acquaintance who had a decent-sized Burmese got into a slightly sticky situation once when they went to feed the python her normal rabbit meal. They were leaning over to deposit the rabbit, when they got distracted by something in the enclosure and foolishly pulled the rabbit back, while reaching in a rabbit-scented hand to adjust the whatever-it-was. Didn’t turn out too bad other than some lacerations, but apparently it was touch and go for a minute or two. This was a normally very tractable snake.
I can sorta vaguely understand the appeal ( I used to keep rat and king snakes in my twenties ), but no way would I ever own a large constrictor. I seem to recall cartoonist Gary Larson having a similar epiphany after a similar incident.
If you are aware of them it would be pretty easy to avoid getting constricted. They are pretty sneaky though. They can wrap around unsuspecting prey without ever being heard or seen.
One of the guys I talked to working for a local tree company was doing trim work, climbing a tree. He positioned himself cut a few branches and when he went to climb higher he couldn’t move his leg. He looked down to see a large boa constrictor wrapped around his leg and the tree. Certainly the last thing he’d ever expected to happen doing tree work in Massachusetts. Having a chain saw in his hands made it pretty easy to deal with the situation though. He cut right through the snake which released him.
I owned a Burmese Python for years that got to 12 feet and it could have easily killed me if I wasn’t careful. And there is definitely a difference between an annoyance bite and a feeding sequence.
I got bit a couple of times when I first got her because I annoyed her and she wanted to let me know. Lightning fast hit and release. Believe me, snakes have body language and you learn quick when to back off and when she’s feeling tolerant.
Feeding is a completely different behavior. A feeding sequence is bite, hold on and start wrapping coils very quickly. Snakes are also surprisingly fast when they want to be. But the most likely “in the wild” attack would be an ambush. If a 20ft constrictor was covered by vegetation and waiting in ambush (a very common tactic for snakes) and grabbed your leg as you went by, you would fall down and be in serious trouble before you really realized what was happening. And once the snake starts a feeding sequence, it won’t stop until you stop breathing or you kill it. With enough people you could force it’s jaws open and extricate yourself, but it would be ugly and you’d be shitting your pants the whole time.
I donated her to a snake farm because handling got to be a chore and I had trouble finding people to help. Once a snake gets too large to handle safely by yourself, there’s essentially no commercial market and the only guy who answered my ad was an idiot who thought snakes were pets. She would have taught him the folly of that idea and he would have dumped her.
And here we illuminate the origin of “Pythons take over the Everglades!!11ZOMG1!1!!”
Breeding by amateurs “just because they could” or to earn a few bucks to buy rabbits glutted the market and destroyed all economic value of (especially) Burmese pythons. Once these huge numbers of snakes reached large size and required massive amounts of food and produced even more massive piles of shit, amateurs unable to sell them and unwilling to kill their long term “pets” took the only recourse remaining – they released them.
Good post, Ornery Bob, and good on you for finding a professional to accept your snake.
