To see what the inside of a snake looks like, he lets a python eat him alive

In 2014, the Discovery Channel designed a program in which they found an Amazonian anaconda about six meters long and let it swallow the host alive so that the host could see what the giant snake looked like from the inside.

Despite wearing protective gear, the host still felt tremendous pressure and pain. At the moment when the anaconda swallowed his head, the host felt as if all the bones in his body were about to break, so he immediately stopped.

Did you see the host's muddy hands? Anacondas often strangle their prey and then swallow them｜@ABC News/Youtube

The experiment ultimately failed, and it took several months for the host's injuries to heal.

However, this brings up a question that perhaps everyone has fantasized about as a child: If I encounter an extremely large animal, will I be swallowed alive? !

Python: Really?

This experiment by Discovery is the closest to an anaconda swallowing a human being since video records began. Apart from this, no one has ever recorded an anaconda swallowing a human being in one gulp. However, just because an anaconda can't do it doesn't mean other giant snakes can't do it.

Snakes usually swallow their prey starting from the head or tail, but the shoulders of adult humans are too broad , and the width changes dramatically from head to shoulders, which places high demands on the swallowing ability of large snakes.

African rock pythons have extremely terrifying swallowing abilities, and they need to swallow all kinds of large prey on the grassland.

When swallowing prey, the mouth opens a full 180 degrees, allowing it to bite the prey with a mouthful of teeth. Its jaws are held together by a series of ligaments that act like thin, elastic rubber bands, and the jaws are barely connected to each other. This structure allows the snake's jaws to "walk" along the body of large prey, and by twisting its head back and forth, it can gradually swallow large prey - even if this time may be measured in days.

In 2022, an African rock python swallowing an impala, its mouth has expanded to an exaggerated angle｜Youtube

Although there have been no images of African rock pythons swallowing humans, they are likely capable of doing so.

Reticulated pythons in Southeast Asia have confirmed records of cannibalism and will include humans on their menu.

In the current record, the reticulated python holds the title of the world's longest snake, with a length of more than 10 meters. In the wild, the reticulated python is ferocious and has a strong desire to attack. A reticulated python of about 6 meters in length is already very dangerous to humans. Once they decide to take the initiative to attack, it is difficult for the victim to escape the strangulation of the reticulated python without the help of a second person.

In 2017, a missing Indonesian man was found dead inside a python. The 7-meter-long reticulated python was cut open to reveal the man's body, which was dressed in clothes . Some scientists believe that it takes a python a month to digest a whole person, but clothes are difficult to digest. If the snake had not been dissected by the villagers, it would probably have died of indigestion.

However, large individuals of reticulated pythons, which can grow to more than 6 meters, have become increasingly rare in recent years, even in Indonesia.

Recently, a 5-meter-long Burmese python was dissected and a 1.5-meter-long crocodile was found inside its body. | Rosie Moore

In the numerous records of giant pythons attacking humans, it is not difficult to find that the pythons that attack humans are at least 5 meters long, so in the eyes of ordinary people like us, 5 meters can be considered the dividing line where giant pythons can pose a life threat to humans.

Whale: If you can't swallow it, you can vomit it out.

On land, we only discuss pythons because other animals are not very good at swallowing people.

The animals we think of as dangerous, such as crocodiles and hippos with their huge mouths, can only take half a bite out of a human . Although they have a record of causing casualties (looking at you, saltwater crocodiles and Nile crocodiles), judging from the size of their mouths, they can only take a big bite out of a human, and they can't swallow it in one bite.

As for those flying in the sky, the existing descendants of dinosaurs are no longer large enough to threaten humans.

Of course, if we are not limited to land, the scope of discussion will be much larger. After all, the ocean is home to the largest animal on earth - the blue whale.

Size comparison between blue whales and humans | Wikimedia Commons

The average length of a blue whale is 25 meters, which corresponds to a mouth volume of 110 cubic meters . With a big mouth, it is more than enough to swallow a person. But compared to the huge mouth of a blue whale, the diameter of their throat is about the size of a watermelon , which makes it difficult to swallow an adult. So don't worry if you are swallowed, blue whales will spit you out.

Although it can swallow humans, there is no record of a blue whale swallowing a human in history. The protagonists in this type of news are often humpback whales.

In 2021, a diver claimed to have been swallowed by a humpback whale while catching lobsters. Because its throat was too small to swallow him, the humpback whale spit him out.

The humpback whale's head and jaw have no small tumor-like protrusions | Tuchong Creative

Humpback whales and blue whales are both baleen whales. When they eat, they swallow seawater in large gulps and then filter the food through their baleen to keep it in their mouths. Although they are huge, their food is mainly tiny krill , and even if they eat fish, they are basically small fish. This means that although they have a large mouth, their throat does not need to be too large.

Whales are so big, are there any that can swallow a person? Yes, for example, sperm whales . Compared to pythons that strangle their prey to death, sperm whales can really swallow a living person in one gulp.

The relationship between whales and dolphins. Mr. Krabs' daughter, Zhen Zhen, is a sperm whale｜carefordolphins.net

Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales, and their diet includes giant squids. Although sperm whales have large teeth, they are not very helpful for eating, but are more used for fighting. Sperm whales mainly swallow squid by sucking it, and giant squids more than ten meters long have been found in the stomachs of sperm whales .

A giant squid caught in 2007. Take a look at its size. | nationalgeographic.com

It is not impossible for a human to be swallowed by a sperm whale. If you are unlucky enough to be swallowed, you may only live for a few minutes - there is not much oxygen in the sperm whale's stomach. In the end, the part of the human body that the sperm whale cannot digest may be turned into ambergris and excreted from the body, becoming the raw material of expensive perfume.

Don't worry, sperm whales are mostly active in the open ocean and deep sea, and the chances of humans seeing them are slim.

Orcas are also a type of toothed whale. Although they are killer whales and can even hunt down great white sharks (which, by the way, don't like to eat people), they don't eat people whole. Moreover, orcas in the wild never kill people.

All in all, it's not easy to be swallowed by an animal. If you've ever encountered this, please leave a message on the Species Calendar to tell us about your experience.

References

[1] Goldbogen, JA. Mechanics and energetics of rorqual lunge feeding. Diss. 2009.

[2] Tinker, Spencer Wilkie (1988). Whales of the World. Brill Archive, p. 62, ISBN 0-935848-47-9

[3]Penning, David A., Schuyler F. Dartez, and Brad R. Moon. "The big squeeze: scaling of constriction pressure in two of the world's largest snakes, Python reticulatus and Python molurus bivittatus." Journal of Experimental Biology 218.21 (2015): 3364-3367.

[4] Gruesome video reveals the moment a 5-foot alligator corpse was cut from the gut of a dead python https://www.livescience.com/alligator-removed-from-dead-python

[5] Indonesian man's body found inside python - police https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39427458

[6] JAW-DROPPING: SO HOW DOES A SNAKE EAT A MAN? https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/jaw-dropping-so-how-does-a-snake-eat-a-man

Author: Yuan Xia

Editor: Little Towel, Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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