by Reticulated pythons are the largest snakes in the world, capable of reaching up to 11 meters
4 hours ago
Image: BornAKang/Twitter/Playback
It looks like a horror movie: the roof of a house collapses under the weight of several snakes of the reticulated python species, the longest snake in the world. The video is a recording of an operation by Malaysian emergency teams.
A family called security officers to check what was in the residence, they reported hearing strange noises at night. At the beginning of the video, originally posted on TikTok, the handler uses a stick to encourage the seemingly small snake to come off the roof.
What no one expected was that the siding of the house would collapse under the weight of several huge snakes living there. “At this point you have to burn the house down,” captioned the original video, posted by user @baju_skoda.
At that point you have to burn the house down pic.twitter.com/BGzbQ06kPv
— Lance🇱🇨 (@BornAKang) February 13, 2023
That big baby right there is the largest snake in the world, the reticulated python. It lives only in parts of Asia.
— Biodiversity Brazil (@BiodiversidadeB) February 13, 2023
In addition to the number of snakes, the size of the animals attracted attention. This is because the reticulated python can reach 11 meters in length. More commonly, females are larger and heavier than males.
It remains unclear how these snakes ended up on the roof of the house. The species usually lives near watercourses, which facilitates movement due to its length. But they also like warm and humid places, with temperatures between 24ºC and 34ºC.
It is the warmer climate that will facilitate the pregnancy of females. Therefore, from the number of snakes that “lived” on the roof, everything indicates that they lived there for a long time. This is because a female reticulated python lays 25 to 80 eggs in an 85-day gestation period. They are wrapped over the eggs at all times to provide good incubation.
carnivorous and deaf
It is also difficult to know how these animals ate on the roof. Python snakes are carnivores and eat birds, mammals and even other reptiles. But given the size of the family, they don’t seem to have been very hungry while living there.
There are cases where python reticulated snakes swallowed people whole. One of the most recent cases is from 2020, when a 54-year-old woman from Indonesia was attacked by a seven-meter animal. A year earlier, the same had happened to a 25-year-old man, also in Indonesia.
If these animals reached their victims, it was probably by smell. This is because Python snakes do not have ears. They communicate with body vibrations that warn of mating and territorial dominance.
Despite having nasal cavities, the sense of smell works best on the forked tongue, which launches particles into the air taken in by the species’ mates. They can live up to 25 years in the wild or in captivity.
But if you’re wondering what the odds are of one living on your roof, don’t worry: the reticulated python is native to the rainforests of Southeast Asia and some Pacific islands. In Brazil, you can visit one of them Sao Paulo Aquarium.
