A giant python that is said to have swallowed a goat whole and terrorized a village has been captured by firefighters.
The 23-foot-long snake has been prowling around Kubang Pasu, Malaysia, for most of the week and is believed to have swallowed a goat on Thursday.
This reptile weighs 308 pounds, equivalent to about 10 average-sized two-year-old children. The farmers were astonished to find the snake with a giant, goat-shaped tumor in its stomach.
Experts believe that the python was exhausted from digesting its huge meal, so it was unable to escape. The image shows the snake lying on the ground with a large ball in the middle of its coils. Another photo shows a firefighter clutching the python’s head as it displays its massive jaws.
“We received the report at 8:23 a.m. and arrived on the scene shortly after,” the fire agency said in a statement obtained by Newsflash.
“A total of four members were deployed and arrived at the scene 25 minutes later. After arriving at the scene, members of the Kubang Pasu Civil Defense Force discovered that the reticulated python had swallowed a goat in the goat pen near the complainant’s house.
It didn’t take long for the rescue team to catch the snake and bring it to the police station. The snake was then handed over to experts from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Peninsular Malaysia to return to the wild.
Reticulated pythons, known by the scientific name Malayopython reticulatus, are native to South and Southeast Asia. It is considered the longest snake in the world and the third-heaviest after the green anaconda and the Burmese python.
It is listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species due to its wide distribution.
