Horrifying news about pythons is endless. News about pythons eating people has been reported in many places. Unfortunately, many such news are actually spreading rumors to .
Although pythons are huge , they also have their own prey preferences . Creatures as big as humans are not the first choice of pythons..
For a python, swallowing such a large amount of food will make it difficult to move , but it will easily put itself in a dangerous situation .
Since there are so few cases of pythons eating humans, some crazy scientists even experimented on themselves in order to simulate the scenario of pythons preying on humans.
The scary python in the movie
The misunderstood python
The python we often refer to generally refers to the members of the Snakeform suborderBoa family, which is divided into Boa subfamily and Anacondae. The representative species is Reticulated python and green anaconda .
One of them is the longest snake in the world , and the other is the heaviest snake on the earth .
Among them, the reticulated python has clear records of attacking and devouring people, while the green water anaconda has no records at all.
Pythons are all non-venomous snakes . They require excellent physical fitness to hunt, that is, bite, entangle, and swallow, forming a "three-piece suit" in one go.
In the movie, a python preys on humans
First, locks on the prey , approaches quietly without making any noise, and bites the prey when it is unprepared.
then uses his body to wrap up the prey , and constantly uses his muscles to contract inward, squeezing the prey's body, causing the prey's internal organs to rupture .
finally swallows , the prey that has lost the ability to fight back.
Snake skulls are very special. They can dislocate their mandibles and open their mouths to the diameter of their prey.
Therefore, many people misunderstand the habits of pythons and think that pythons eat very large foods.
Pythons hunt
In fact, this is not the case. Some scientists have calculated the food size of two large pythons, the reticulated python and the green anaconda, and found that they prefer prey that is about 18 kilograms.
An adult female weighs more than 45 kilograms, and an adult male is larger. If the python must eat adults, then it itself will face great risks .
For example, in the reticulated python's cannibalism case , it swallowed an adult man, but because the devouring time was too long, it was discovered and was finally beaten to death.
It can be seen from this that pythons are not invincible . The python that swallows its prey is exactly when is most vulnerable .
The fed python
Because the larger the prey, it means that the python needs and spends more time . Moreover, after a python swallows such a large prey, once it encounters danger, its moves very slowly and is easily attacked.
When a python encounters danger, it will vomit out the food in its belly. The bigger the food, the slower it vomits, and the smaller its chance of escape.
Therefore, no matter what the reason is, python will not take the initiative to provoke human , and will not take the initiative to eat human .
Of course, if humans insist on intruding into the territory of pythons, they will still be counterattacked by pythons.
Snakes that broke into human society
Dangerous experiments
Because pythons rarely attack people, scientists do not know how people will react when being entangled by pythons. Therefore, a scientist named Paul Rossoli, Decided to use myself as the target of the experiment.
Paul first found a green water anaconda with a body length of 17.6 meters . It was covered with hard muscles . The thickest part of its body was almost a human waist.
Just in case, Paul put on a special "armor" - carbon fiber protective suit , which can protect the organs in his body when the python wraps around him.
Experimenter Paul Rossoli
The experiment began. Paul deliberately angered the green anaconda and let it wrap around him. Soon, the angry green anaconda wrapped Paul from head to toe.
During the first five seconds of being entangled, Paul could still talk to doctors and assistants.
At the 6th second, Paul could hear the sound of the armor deforming.
At the 7th second, Paul felt the pressure, which meant that the armor had been pressed against his body by the green anaconda.
Starting from the 8th second, the armor had no effect. Paul felt the pressure and pain in his body.
The entanglement of the python is fatal
After 10 seconds, Paul was speechless and became increasingly uncomfortable and unable to breathe normally. The heart rate monitor next to
showed that Paul's heartbeat was rising linearly . When 's heartbeat soared to 180, the doctor suggested stopping the experiment immediately, otherwise his life would be in danger.
The experiment was immediately stopped. The rescued Paul was pale, breathing rapidly , and his limbs could not move normally at all.
After he recovered, Paul began to talk about the feeling of being entangled by a python.
Even the crocodile cannot escape the death entanglement
Paul said that at first he felt a force pushing the whole person inward, and its arms were almost broken. After
, when the body's contraction reaches the limit, it can clearly feel that the ribs are being crushed .
After that, he showed signs of difficulty breathing, and then his head began to feel dizzy, especially his eyes, which felt like they were about to burst.
Paul also said that the green anaconda is very smart. Every time he breathes , the green anaconda shrinks once , specifically taking advantage of this gap, so it becomes more uncomfortable as it gets to the back.
Paul admitted that without this armor, he might not be able to survive in the 10th second.
Paul put the experimental process on the TV station. This experiment also solved people's long-standing question, that is, if a person has a weapon in his hand, can he kill a python?
A python in a cage
The possibility of survival
Many people think that pythons are slow in movement. If humans are unfortunate enough to encounter them in the wild, if they have weapons in their hands, they can counter-kill the python. This statement has also been accepted Many people support me.
Is this really the case?
According to Paul's experiments, the weight of this green anaconda is more than 00 kilograms, exceeding Paul himself.
And although it moves slowly, at the moment of entanglement, it has the extremely explosive power of .
The entanglement of the green anaconda immobilized the whole person, making it impossible for his hands to move. Even if he was carrying a weapon, he couldn't make room to take action.
The python is astonishingly long.
Paul is also wearing protective clothing, so he can hold on for so long.
Ordinary people without any protection can only last about 10 seconds if they fight against the entanglement of a python with their own body.
Before Paul's experiment, scientists had used the ballistic dummy to conduct a python entanglement simulation.
The ballistic dummy is a relatively realistic prop, with simulating human internal organs and bones inside. Data from the
experiment shows that without wearing any protection, human ribs will break and internal organs will be damaged and bleed when entangled by giant snakes such as anacondas.
Snake bones
The entanglement of pythons will also isolate blood circulation, resulting in human body being deprived of oxygen, brain congestion, eyeballs burst and other serious injuries.
This kind of damage is irreversible. Even if the python is killed and pulled away later, the person may have died.
Someone asked if could pretend to be dead , so that the snake would not continue to entangle and take advantage of this gap to escape.
Paul uses practical experience to tell everyone that this method is not effective, because pythons can feel whether their prey is dead .
Most snakes' eyes don't work well, so they rely on tongues to feel changes in their surroundings.
Living things are surrounded by various chemical molecules , from which snakes can obtain the information they want.
For example, the odor molecules emitted by a living person and a dead person are different. You may think that your skill of pretending to be dead is perfect, but in fact, it will not work at all in front of a snake.
usually deceives visual animals by pretending to be dead, but it cannot deceive animals like snakes that rely on chemical information .
Therefore, it is difficult for pythons such as adult reticulated pythons and green water anacondas to survive after entangling people.
The pattern on the body of the reticulated python helps to hide itself.
It is difficult to encounter
But you don't have to be too afraid. Pythons are scary, and they mainly live in dense forests far away from human habitation..
The probability of an average person encountering a python is very small. Even if they do, the snake will most likely be the first one to run away.
The character of the python is actually not as ferocious as its appearance. For example, the Burmese python has even been domesticated as a pet.
Generally speaking, pythons do not like to conflict with other animals. The size of humans is very huge in the eyes of pythons, so they will actively avoid encounters with humans.
A snake that blends into the surrounding environment and camouflages
Compared with cobra,cauliflower snake and other snakes with bad tempers and relatively large distribution ranges, pythons are considered a relatively "behaved" family of snakes.
However, with the intensification of human activities, the habitat of pythons has been destroyed, resulting in more and more encounters between humans and pythons, and the number of sightings of pythons is also on the rise.
In addition, because some types of pythons are used as pets, they cannot cultivate feelings.
As a result, pet pythons escaped into the wild, causing invasive species. For example, Florida, in the United States, suffered a lot of losses due to the proliferation of exotic Burmese pythons.
Burmese python that ran into the wild
In short, the situation of the python family is not very good now. Paul did this experiment, firstly, to let people know the power of pythons, and secondly, to call everyone's attention to the plight of pythons.
