Daniel Peric maintained that prior to the fatal attack the python had stalked the family's dog for days. Although the snake wasn't a pet (it lived in the wild), Mr. scrub python on the veranda of their home in tropical Kuranda, Queensland. According to news accounts of the incident, the Peric family (husband, wife, and two children) watched in horror as their chihuahua was gobbled up by a 16 ft. Some elements of the legend were reflected in a February 2008 news story out of Australia involving the swallowing of a family dog by a snake. (There are other methods for dealing with non-eating snakes, including, in extreme circumstances, force-feeding.) No reasonably informed vet would counsel having a snake put down because it hadn't eaten of late and thus must be planning to make a meal of its owner.Those who keep fairly large snakes as pets generally know that it's perfectly normal for their pets to go without food for fairly long periods of time and thus scoff at the notion that a snake's not eating would be cause to rush it to a vet.And while a really big snake could indeed swallow a person's arm, it's quite unlikely that the kinds of snakes typically kept as pets in homes could get their jaws open wide enough to take in an adult human's head and shoulders. For a snake to slurp up large prey whole, it would not only have to be at least as long as its prospective dinner, but it would also have to be capable of ingesting the width of that prey - simply measuring length wouldn't be a sufficiently reliable guide to what a snake could ingest.Most of their prey wouldn't willingly wait for them to finish mimicking tape measures before consenting to be eaten they would hop away to safety as soon as they noticed large snakes stretching out alongside them. To look at it another way, if pythons were in the habit of measuring before striking, they'd likely starve. There's little fretting in their nature about relative sizes of intended edibles, nor does all that much go into their thinking process. Pythons don't measure their prey before going after their meals: They grab, they squeeze, they eat. ![]() Why? Because it had been measuring this guy's girlfriend to see if it could eat her, and the reason it hadn't been eating was because it was planning to.Īlthough such stories are interesting, they should be classified with other fictional tales of snake scarelore on the following bases: The vet's reaction was to put the snake down immediately. "Yes, every time my girlfriend wakes up it's over her head." The vet checked it out and said there was nothing wrong with its health, had it been behaving oddly? Since it still wouldn't eat, the guy took it to the vet. Naturally she was terrified.įor the three nights following every time the girl woke up the snake was over her head. One night the guy had his girlfriend over and she woke up to find the python on the pillow above her head. It hadn't been eating lately, and no one knew why. This didn't bother anyone so no one thought much of it. My brother told me a story the other week about his girlfriend's friend's sister's boyfriend's friend's friend (you see why I am skeptical).Īpparently this guy had a python for a pet, and it would often escape from its tank. It's perfectly normal."Ĭonfused she asks why he has to be put down. "He's just starving himself in preparation for a big meal. "There's nothing wrong with him." The vet says. "Why? What's wrong with him?" my friend's sister asks. He was lying straight, up and down the bed." Wondering if the snake was seeking warmth he asks if it was curled up on the bed. ![]() She just picked him up and put him back in his tank. The only thing odd was that a couple of night ago she woke up to find the snake on the bed beside her. ![]() ![]() So Tuesday of this week she goes back to the vet who can still find nothing wrong and asks if there has been any unusual behavour. He wasn't worried and explained that snakes like this can go quite some time without eating and suggested she take it back home, keep a close eye on it and if it still wasn't eating in a week or two to bring it back in again. After a while she got concerned and took it to the vet who could find nothing wrong. The sister has a pet python which stopped eating. The person that told me says it was her sister. I'd be the first to admit that this sounds like one of those internet horror storys that always happen to a friend of a friend of a friend of. A common bit of serpentlore is cast as a warning to snake owners who are dangerously unaware that their pets are calmly sizing them up as the main courses of their next meals:
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