[Edu-sig] Python bites off more than it can chew

[Jason Cunliffe]

*I'd love to send the photo, but alas mailings lists don trust inline 
graphics:-(
*

***http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/story/0,,20372915-5006003,00.html
*

*Jason
*

*--------------------------
*

*A LITTLE bloating after a big meal is an occupational hazard for 
pythons. But this unfortunate creature found itself unable to slink away 
and sleep it off.*

In fact, after swallowing a pregnant sheep, it couldn't move at all.

Firemen in the Malaysian village of Kampung Jabor, about 190km east of 
Kuala Lumpur, easily caught it after it was spotted on a road.

Conservationists were yesterday still deciding whether to keep the 90kg 
snake in a zoo or release it back into the wild.

Pythons eat no more than once a week but when they open their incredible 
hinged jaws, anything is fair game.

This 5.5m python found its eyes were definitely bigger than its belly.

In July surgeons were forced to operate on a 4m Burmese python after it 
inadvertently swallowed a queen-size electric blanket.

Humans also have become victims. In 1972 a python in Burma swallowed an 
eight-year-old boy.

But sometimes their food really doesn't agree with them.

In October last year, a 3.6m python came off second best in Everglades 
National Park in Florida.

The snake, which tried to swallow a 1.8m alligator whole, exploded, said 
scientists who found the gory remains.