A 25-year-old Indonesian man who went missing while harvesting palm oil has been found dead inside the body of a giant python, police say.
The man, identified only as Akbar, disappeared on Sunday on the island of Sulawesi. Police spokesperson Mashura told BBC Indonesian that villagers reported him missing for 24 hours. A search party later discovered an unmoving reticulated python near the family's palm plantation. "They didn't find him, but the villagers saw an unmoving python in the ditch. They grew suspicious that maybe the snake had Akbar. When they cut it open, Akbar was inside the snake," Mashura said.
The snake, reported to be 7 metres (23 feet) long, was cut open, revealing the man's clothed body. Village secretary Salubiro Junaidi told The Jakarta Post that people had heard cries from the palm grove the night before and that the boots Akbar was wearing were clearly visible inside the snake's stomach.
Reticulated pythons are among the world's longest reptiles and typically suffocate their prey before swallowing it whole. While they rarely attack humans, expert Nia Kurniawan from Brawijaya University said a python of this size would hunt large prey such as boars or wild dogs. He noted that palm oil plantations attract these animals, making them a hunting ground for pythons despite their usual avoidance of human settlements.
The longest python held in captivity, according to Guinness World Records, was a reticulated python in Kansas City, US, measured at 7.6 metres (25 feet) in 2011. Python species are found in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, China, and Southeast Asia.
