History of Giant Snake Attacks

Did you know there is a tribe in the Philippines where over 25% of the men have been attacked by a large constrictor snake?

Agta Tribe and Giant Snake Encounters

The tribe is the Agta who live in isolated mountain areas of the Philippines and considered the earliest inhabitants of the country.

In 1976 Anthropologist Thomas Hedland interviewed the Agta extensively on the subject of giant snake attacks.

Living in such close proximity to these giant pythons makes the Agta more susceptible to attack than most humans forcing them to learn how to defend themselves against the belly crawling beasts.

But even though these monster reptiles feed primarily on small mammals like wild pigs the Agta are a small race of people.

The average Agta tribesman is under 5 feet tall and weighs less than 100 pounds, which means there isn’t much difference in size when comparing them to a wild pig.

Thomas and his wife Janet spend over 24 years [1962-1986] among the tribesmen, documenting some amazing reports.

Of the 600 tribal people he interviewed 120 of them.

2 men had been attacked twice, 15 bitten and 11 had permanent scars to forever remind them of these deadly snakes

Between 1934 and 1973 6 Agta members had been killed by a giant snake attack.

One man was found still digesting inside the body of a massive python.

And perhaps the most tragic incident was the evening a man named Teteng walked into his children’s hut.

Something you only see in horror films, Teteng found his son and one of his daughters dead on the floor.

A huge killer snake had one of his children wrapped in it’s coils and had began swallowing her head first.

The father pulled out his bolo knife and frantically slashed the snake into pieces, but it was too late…his baby daughter Nini’s siblings, were dead.

What kind of giant snake could eat a man whole?

That would be the world’s longest snake, a reticulated python.

Now while large constrictor snakes are known for being docile and ambush only predators, Thomas Headland’s research shows that in this area of the world, these pythons seem to be much more aggressive than usual.

Thomas Hedland was quoted saying

I’ve lived in the rainforest longer than any American scientist.

I’ve seen things out there that I saw in Tarzan movies when I was a kid.

Three or four times, the pythons came into camp and killed chickens. One time, a man saw a snake coiled around his dog, and he killed it was a machete. My wife’s killed one python and I’ve killed one.

 

 

The largest python he ever saw was a 23 foot [7 meter] retic that was shot and killed by his neighbor.

 

 

This was the 3rd largest on record at the time.

 

 

This thing is massive, could you imagine living in constant fear of a snake this size coming out of the brush and biting your leg.

 

Do you think this snake would have any problem swallowing both of those men?

Weird n Wild Creature Cards – Reticulated Python

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History of Giant Snake Attacks