# Swallowed Whole By a Snake?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 16, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362 "2005-02-16T15:52:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/1 "2005-02-16T15:52:15Z")
On Monday, CSI: Miami presented the following episode: [FamilyScreenScene.com](http://familyscreenscene.allinfoabout.com/tv/csimiami.html)
> [@](#):
>
> February 14, 10pm e/p - Identity: When the CSIs find \*\* a woman swallowed whole and killed by a gigantic snake\*\*, they uncover a covert drug smuggling operation. Evidence leads Horatio and the team to a drug smuggling operation where large snakes are suspected of be being used to bring illegal drugs into the country to avoid detection by customs. However, when Horatio finds that Clavo Cruz, a nemesis of Horatio’s who hides behind his diplomatic immunity, may be behind the operation, the team must find a legal way to put the criminal behind bars. Meanwhile, Wolfe must find the truth when two women each claim that they are the real victim of identity theft and the other is the culprit. Rated: Not yet rated, but probably TV14 for language, violence, and sex.
A woman swallowed whole and killed by a gigantic snake. This I could not buy. Yes, it was a purty big ole snake, but actually swallow a human being, and according to the storyline, _regurgitate_ it? I’m not … biting.
I looked at [a CalTech herpatology site](http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~garthman/herp.html) and found this information:
> [@](#):
>
> Once I saw this 60-foot snake…
>
> ```
> No, you didn't. The world record is 33 feet for a Reticulated Python, and though it has been surmised that longer snakes exist in the wild they probably don't get any bigger than 40 feet.
>
> ```
>
> …who ate his owner.
>
> ```
> It really is amazing how many people are under the misconception that people are eaten by snakes all the time. In fact, there is only one record that I know of for a snake actually eating a grown human, and that was the case of a Reticulated Python in a zoo eating a zookeeper who was not taking appropriate precautions while feeding. There have been reports of large pet snakes escaping and eating small children, but these are dubious and generally sound like examples of poor owners.
>
> ```
Well, maybe poor owners, but this source makes it sound at least possible. Is it? Any snakie experts who know?
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/2 "2005-02-16T15:54:12Z")
I know that snakes _do_ tend to swallow things whole, as they have difficulty with a knife and fork.
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### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/3 "2005-02-16T15:56:46Z")
My father was swallowed by a snake. But he took a knife and cut himself out…or so he told us when we were kids. Hmmm, that reminds me, I have a few questions for dear ol’ dad.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/4 "2005-02-16T16:00:15Z")
As for the CSI episode, that snake could not have swallowed that woman. A GIGANTIC snake migh be able to swallow a smaller man, but for the most part a snake’s jaws have trouble distending around the shoulders.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/5 "2005-02-16T16:05:19Z")
Giant Anacondas _can_ swallow a human; it helps if it is a small and/or slender human, but I’m pretty sure there have been genuine reported cases of it happening (as well as a larger number of popular hoaxes).
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/6 "2005-02-16T16:35:09Z")
Being swallowed by a snake is a little more plausible than some of the junk they come up with. In one epk, there’s a psychic who’s trying to warn stokes of a bad guy because he (the psychic) keeps having visions. In others, they have enlarged reflections from a person’s eye to obtain evidence–one of the photos from a surveillance camera! :dubious:
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/7 "2005-02-16T16:37:26Z")
[Here’s](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/animals/anaconda.htm) a link to a couple of photos Snopes said were false.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/8 "2005-02-16T18:38:06Z")
> [@BMalion](#):
>
> [Here’s](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/animals/anaconda.htm) a link to a couple of photos Snopes said were false.
I’ve always disliked that Snopes entry. All it really says is that the first two pictures aren’t related to the third (ok, big deal) and then goes on to dismiss the third as “simply [looking like] a bad fake.” Well, guys, it doesn’t look like a “bad fake” to _my_ amateur eyes. How 'bout doing some research and/or investigation rather than just dismissing it? If it’s fake, tell us how you know.
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/9 "2005-02-16T18:49:20Z")
It looks like a bad fake to me, but then I took a year of Photoshop at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Hint: the blurry edge where the man’s torso goes into the body of the snake.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/10 "2005-02-16T18:53:44Z")
> [@BMalion](#):
>
> It looks like a bad fake to me, but then I took a year of Photoshop at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
>
> Hint: the blurry edge where the man’s torso goes into the body of the snake.
To me, that just looks like where the sun and/or flash is hitting. And it’s mostly blurred **above** where the body enters. I’m not saying it’s real, I just don’t see anything as of now that shows it as being fake and I certain don’t believe it is or warrants the term “bad fake”.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/11 "2005-02-16T19:02:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The big pythons can consume animals that weigh up to about 68 kg (150 lb), but swallowing such a meal is a laborious process.
[Encarta](http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761578341)
Another reason for me not to bother getting down to my ideal weight 😉
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/12 "2005-02-16T19:28:17Z")
There was a case of an snake in Africa swallowing whole a new born baby. But an adult woman?
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/13 "2005-02-16T20:06:58Z")
Okay, for what it’s worth I’m going to share something I once saw with y’all.
Maybe 15 yrs ago I was travelling through SE Asia, I was in Indonesia, Java to be specific, in a city called Yogjakarta. A really lovely city, one of the few remaining sultanates, for centuries a centre for arts and culture. Still today a centre for arts and crafts. The city is filled with many wonderous things to enchant a visitor, ancient water gardens, sultan’s palaces, bird markets, and temples in abundance.
We so enjoyed our stay there, anyhoo, we’d become fast friends with a baycek driver (sort of bicycle driven transport, both charming and risky) who took us, day after day from spot to spot to see the wonders of his lovely city. We ended up staying on and the day came when we’d been to all the high spots and we were clearly running out of choices. Our driver, Muday, suggestion a museum not listed in the guidebooks.
Well, of course, we were all over this idea. In no time we were standing outside a dilapidated colonial monstrosity of a building crawling with school children mostly lower form students, all in uniform and pretty much running wildly about all of the few rooms that made up the collection.
And the collection itself consisted of mostly specimens of all manner of bugs and creatures preserved in mason jars, fetus’s of animals with deformities, bones and skeletons and the skins of yet more strange creatures. Snakes, jungle cats and bad taxidermy as far as the eye could see. All of it a jumble, most not labelled.
I’ve been in a lot of museums, but I’ll never forget this one. The collection was absolutely captivating in it’s oddness, and the masses of noisy school children running about in the wide aisles were just as entertaining. We were actually there for quite some time.
Anyhoo, amongst the collection was some old photos and documents with little or no attribution. And there was a series of old photos and accompanying cuttings from newspapers, and the three photos were of a python, a massive python.
It had a very large bulge in it’s belly in the first photo, and second showed it cut open and the body of a (granted both small and slight) Indonesian young man. He was dead.
He had been swallowed by the snake. They had found the snake (who could, no doubt, hardly move), sliced it open and there was the person that had gone missing from the local village. However, it was never determined if he had died from a fall and then the snake came upon the body.
Of course, I cannot produce these photos for you, so sorry. I can only tell you what I saw and in what circumstances. Hoping you enjoyed this journey down memory lane as much as I did.
As for the tv show, I saw it and, I think, if you go back and look again,you’ll see she was crushed by the snake, drawn to her by the heat of her sunburn, it (y’know, supposedly) snuggles up around her, crushes her, then attempts, unsuccessfully, to consume her.
Which explained why she was covered with bite marks and covered in slime.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/14 "2005-02-16T20:41:11Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> I’ve always disliked that Snopes entry. All it really says is that the first two pictures aren’t related to the third (ok, big deal) and then goes on to dismiss the third as “simply [looking like] a bad fake.” Well, guys, it doesn’t look like a “bad fake” to _my_ amateur eyes. How 'bout doing some research and/or investigation rather than just dismissing it? If it’s fake, tell us how you know.
As Snopes says, it’s obvious that the snake in the first two photos is different from that in the last one. It’s much larger and is different in color. Also it is obvious that the prey item in the first snake is not shaped like a human being.
The second photo looks like a fake to my eyes, not in the sense of the photo itself having been altered, but in the sense of purporting to depict something that did not occur. It seems to me that it was probably created by killing a real snake and splitting it open, and then arranging it so that it looks like the human had been inside it. The snake simply appears much too small to have accomodated the body that appears in the photo, in particular the part of the snake that’s been supposedly split open to reveal the body.
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### Author:  [@Agent\_Cooper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Cooper)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/15 "2005-02-16T20:48:52Z")
Bizzare Magazine published a photo maybe 6-7 years ago of a snake which was found while attempting to swallow a man. I guess it was taking too long for it, and somebody found and shot it. The guy was probly halfway in, head first, and very dead. IANA photoshop expert, but it looked pretty authentic.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/16 "2005-02-16T21:23:11Z")
> [@Agent Cooper](#):
>
> Bizzare Magazine published a photo maybe 6-7 years ago of a snake which was found while attempting to swallow a man. I guess it was taking too long for it, and somebody found and shot it. The guy was probly halfway in, head first, and very dead. IANA photoshop expert, but it looked pretty authentic.
I think I’ve seen that photo, too. On a site called Consumption Junction (that I certainly can’t link to! 😛 )
FWIW, there seems to be very little argument about whether a snake _could_ eat an adult human - and I certainly don’t see any reason that it’s not possible. Nor has much effort gone into finding out whether one has been documented doing so. Can we ignore photos and go after, ummmm, some facts?
(Also FWIW - I presume that once a snake had crushed the shoulders, pelvis and ribs of a human, and given a good squeeze, it’d be well under a one-foot diameter throughout? Sounds little problem to a large python.)
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### Author:  [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/17 "2005-02-16T21:25:43Z")
So we don’t really know. Seems possible, might be possible, lots of fakes.
I did enjoy your story **elbows**. But, I don’t agree with what you say about the show, that the snake unsuccessfully tries to consume her. As I recall, they said that the snake DID consume her, and then regurgitates her after the drug vials are crushed, releasing the drug and presumably making the snake ill enough to throw her up.
Which I find unlikely as well! It would be difficult enough for the snake to swallow a person. Would it throw her up easily? And right back on the chair where she was lying, too?
Grr. I think I’m turning against CSI.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/18 "2005-02-16T21:29:36Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#):
>
> (Also FWIW - I presume that once a snake had crushed the shoulders, pelvis and ribs of a human, and given a good squeeze, it’d be well under a one-foot diameter throughout? Sounds little problem to a large python.)
While very strong, even the largest constrictors aren’t powerful enough to break large bones. They kill their prey by suffocation: they compress the rib cage to keep the prey from breathing. After being killed by a snake, a human body will still have basically the same dimensions. As others have mentioned, the problem with swallowing a human is not just its size but its dimensions. Snakes normally start swallowing from the head end, and human shoulders are generally too wide to fit.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/19 "2005-02-16T21:44:09Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> While very strong, even the largest constrictors aren’t powerful enough to break large bones. They kill their prey by suffocation: they compress the rib cage to keep the prey from breathing.
I was watching a show awhile back - and this could’ve been typical Discovery Channel glurge - but they brought up a very good point that I’ve always wondered about. They said that constrictor prey usually dies **much** faster than if it was simply deprived of oxygen, and hypothosized that they actually kill by squeezing so tight that the heart is unable to beat. They also did some impromptu tests that showed the snakes squeezing harder than previously thought.
Take with salt.
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### Author:  [@unclviny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unclviny)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2005, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swallowed-whole-by-a-snake/290362/20 "2005-02-17T00:29:17Z")
> [@BMalion](#):
>
> [Here’s](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/animals/anaconda.htm) a link to a couple of photos Snopes said were false.
I was sent these photo’s a few years ago and I was told that the man was a worker from the company I was then working for (an oilfield service company, hi **TAPIOCA and EL** ). I didn’t believe it then and I still don’t.
Unclviny
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