Search for Missing Man Turns Up His Boot, Then a Bloated Snake

Victim was swallowed whole in remote Indonesia
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 29, 2017 11:30 AM CDT
Villagers Find Missing Man Inside a Python
The reticulated python, with a body inside.   (West Sulawesi Police)

The body of a 25-year-old man who vanished in a remote village in Indonesia has been found—in the belly of a 23-foot-long snake. Father of two Akbar Salubiro had gone to harvest palm oil on his family's plantation on the island of Sulawesi on Sunday when villagers "heard cries from the palm grove," a village secretary tells the Jakarta Post. A search party found scattered fruit, a tool, and a boot, before coming across a bloated reticulated python, reports the AP.

A video of the subsequent dissection (it's graphic, but here for the brave) shows human legs inside the snake as villagers slowly peel it open. Police say Akbar's whole body was found in the snake’s stomach along with his other, well-preserved boot, per the BBC. The village secretary says Akbar had a wound on his back suggesting he was attacked from behind. Reticulated pythons typically seize boars and wild dogs with their fangs before suffocating the prey and swallowing it whole. Attacks on humans are rare. (More Indonesia stories.)

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