According to local reports, a woman in the Indonesian province of Jambi was killed and swallowed whole by a python.
Jahrah, a rubber tapper in her fifties, had gone to work at a rubber plantation on Sunday morning.
She was reported missing after failing to return that night, and search parties were sent to find her. A day later, the villagers discovered a python with what appeared to be a large belly.
Locals then killed the snake and found its body inside.
“The victim was found in the snake’s stomach,” Betara Jambi Police Chief AKP S Harefa told local media, adding that his body appeared largely intact when found.
He said the victim’s husband had found some of his clothes and tools that she had used in the rubber plantation on Sunday night, which led him to call in a search party.
After the snake was spotted on Monday at least 5 meters long, villagers caught and killed it to verify the victim’s identity.
“After cutting the belly, they found out it was Jahrah inside,” Mr Harefa told CNN Indonesia.
Although such incidents are rare, this is not the first time a person in Indonesia has been killed and eaten by a python. Two similar deaths were reported in the country between 2017 and 2018
Pythons swallow their food whole. Very flexible ligaments connect their jaws so they can stretch around large prey.
One expert had earlier told the BBC that pythons typically eat rats and other animals, “but once they reach a certain size it’s almost like they don’t bother with rats anymore because the calories are not worth it”.
“In essence they can go as large as their prey goes,” said Mary-Ruth Low, conservation & research officer for Wildlife Reserves Singapore.
That can include animals as large as pigs or even cows