Snake wants to eat owner - urban myth or not?

Leeby

Hi All,

Mods feel free to move this (or lock if you feel it's stupid altogether but I had to post it because this is annoying me).

Basically I was just wondering if anyone had heard this story about the girl in Dublin whose snake was starving itself in preparation to eat her and so the vet had it put down. The reason I ask is that I thought it was an urban myth but a girl in work swears blind that she knows the person it happened to.

peasant

How did the vet know that the snake was starving itself for that exact purpose?

Did he ask the snake?:D
Or maybe give it a questionnaire to fill in?

Rubbish ...possibly Halloween related

michelleans

peasant wrote: »

How did the vet know that the snake was starving itself for that exact purpose?

Did he ask the snake?:D
Or maybe give it a questionnaire to fill in?

That gave me a good laugh thanks

Leeby

peasant wrote: »

How did the vet know that the snake was starving itself for that exact purpose?

Did he ask the snake?:D
Or maybe give it a questionnaire to fill in?

Rubbish ...possibly Halloween related

They had a formal interview and between the vet and the owner they did a bit of a good cop bad cop routine and eventually the snake crumbled and confessed all, so they charged him with conspiracy to commit murder and he got the death sentence.

Nah there's more details to the story than what I've said but I didn't post the whole thing up as I didn't want to be the eejit that goes around starting urban legends, I just thought someone might recognise the general jist of the story and say if they'd heard it before.

monkeyfudge

I heard this story...

She would keep it in the bed with her and it would stretch itself out straight along the bed next to her... but apparently it turned out it was measuring itself next to her to see if it could eat her.

Yep... the story sounds a bit silly.

peasant

It would have to be a very big snake to be even *contemplating* a human as prey.
And if I had that big a snake, capable of swallowing me hole, I certainly wouldn't share my bed with it

monkeyfudge

I heard it wasn't even a real snake... but a paedophile dressed up as a snake.

Urban myths are fun...

jackdaw

& who the hell likes SNakes !!!!!???

Doctor DooM

I am friends with a young lady who swears she knows this girl.

I will do some dectiving tonight and see if she has any evidence.

Leeby

SDooM wrote: »

I am friends with a young lady who swears she knows this girl.

I will do some dectiving tonight and see if she has any evidence.

and when did your friend say it happened? Cos I was told it happened just last week but I've been told since that other people heard it way before then

Marcus.Aurelius

Sounds like someone actually killed said snake by accident and madeup some rubbish to hide it. By the way, peasant, what are you doing out of the motors forum? I thought we had caged you in by now

Dyr

I heard the snake got her to sign the house over to him in her will. Its dead common in america these days

Ruby Soho

Wow, our friends must know each other so, I heard exactly the same thing. I was like, um, sure.... She also swore blind that she knew the person it happened to, she must be really popular with all these friends!

LuckyStar

No way! My boyfriend told me this story, apparently happened to his friend's girlfriend's sister's friend (no joke).

I must make up something like this and spread it around. Maybe I'll start telling people I have a man-eating donkey.

SCI

Sorry but total crap,I wouldn't even think a snake would have
the intelligence to think that far ahead.If the snake
was not eating,it would be likely because it was stressed.Maybe because
the stupid cow was sleeping with it lol.

monkeyfudge

Heard the story again today from a completely different person... it's amazing how quickly these things spread.

Robbo

Oh yeah, I heard this one last week from a girl I was working with who swore it was one of her friends who was in line for a scaly demise.

DarkJager

I don't even want to know why the snake would be in the bed...was Ann Summers out of vibrators??

sarahpulls

i heard this story yesterday from someone who said it was a friend of their cousin who it happened to. i thought it was interesting but when i went to tell someone else they said that they already heard that story and that it was someone who works with their friends sister...this must either happen often with the exact same details or people just feel the need to share the story by always connecting it to someone they barely know through like 3 different people.

Honey-ec

Complete and utter rubbish - do the Snopes test, people!

http://www.snopes.com/critters/snakes/measured.asp

monkeyfudge

Honey-ec wrote: »

Complete and utter rubbish - do the Snopes test, people!

http://www.snopes.com/critters/snakes/measured.asp

I don't think anyone here actually believed it. Also we were debunking it here well before that Snopes article was even written.

nc13

A friend of mine told me a few years ago his cusin or someone he knew had a snake. After been out to the pub he came back and fed the snake or moved something in the tank, and sat watching tv and had more to drink. He fell asleep and woke up to find the snake trying to eat his leg.

He swore it was true!

carwash_2006

Again, not very likely. A snake is very vulnerable while it is eating, so it's hardly likely to start trying to eat something that hasn't been killed by constriction, or at least severely debilitated.

Your cousin is either very gullible or reckons you are

Frisbee

Heard this one.
No-one actually knows the girl though.
Its always:

mate of a mate
mate's cousin
cousin's mate
guy your brother went to school withs sister...

Myth, Busted

Caroline B

urban myth.

snake wouldnt waste its energy.

huh.

Al C

Total Myth!!!!! And one that perticularly annoys me...

At this stage i've heard it from about 7 or 8 different sourses, all swearing that it happened to a friend of a friend of theirs and that their verion really was true! :eek:

Eh, no its not true. Utter bull actually, and i get a great kick out of telling each new story teller about all the preceding tellers of vertually the same story who said their version really was true too!!!

And if they insist that their version is genuine, i'll explain, in more detail than they want, exactly why its ALL JUST A MYTH, and isn't possible...

I should know, i've got a python.:cool:

meathstevie

Anyone ever contemplated what size it would have to be to be able to swallow an adult human ? It'd be a very unmanageable pet to say the least.

Mokbel

Not a good first post on boards.


Consider this a warning.

kylith

nc13 wrote: »

A friend of mine told me a few years ago his cusin or someone he knew had a snake. After been out to the pub he came back and fed the snake or moved something in the tank, and sat watching tv and had more to drink. He fell asleep and woke up to find the snake trying to eat his leg.

He swore it was true!

Granted I don't know much about snakes, but I do know that they generally start at the head and work down. What would it have done, I wonder, when it got to his crotch and still had another let plus his torso contend with.

I heard this story in Spain in Spanish whilst living in Madrid 2 years ago. Its a myth.

Ri_Nollaig

Frisbee wrote: »

Heard this one.
No-one actually knows the girl though.
Its always:

mate of a mate
mate's cousin
cousin's mate
guy your brother went to school withs sister...

Myth, Busted

thats pretty much the criteria for all myths.

/Edit: just noticed you posted that 2 years ago... still true though

Padjo1981

It's about the 5th time this story has done the rounds, csn't belive people have not heard it before now. It's total bull, no matter who says they know who it happened to. It always is a none ending friend of a friend of a friend.

li-evo7

True I have heard this story loads of times but part of it may be true. I know a lot of people that have snakes and I know a guy who travels to different countries to learn about them and he keeps loads of burmese pythons etc. Apparently snakes do have the intelligence to measure their prey. And they can starve themselves before they kill it. That is where the story comes from. Snakes can swallow people but it would have to be a very large snake. They crush a person until they break all of the bones and that is how they fit them inside themselves. It may be somewhat true of one person that this 'happened to' but not of all of them. Apparently the snake was coming out of its cage at night and stretching its body out to the length of the owner to measure the size and did this continually for a matter of days or weeks or watever and starved itself in the meantime.

SCI

What snakes could swallow an adult human,it's been proven large pythons can't get there jaws around our shoulders. Most if not all constrictors are ambush hunters and are opportunist feeder in the wild. They hit,roll,coil and then feed,there's no planing but I'd been keen to see any research you have on the matter.

kakee

I don't know about snakes eating humans but after watching this video I think its possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pahea7HoeYs

Jumpy

peasant wrote: »

It would have to be a very big snake to be even *contemplating* a human as prey.
And if I had that big a snake, capable of swallowing me hole, I certainly wouldn't share my bed with it

This comes 3 years too late buuut ...

It wouldnt have to be that big to swallow yer hole.

Satyr_The_Great

Pure Myth. The story originated in New York from what I know and spread world wide with the storyline changing slightly.
Basically, the snake was too big for its tank, and the girl could not afford a new bigger tank so she let the snake free roam at night.
Snakes are cold blooded animals / ecothermic.
This means that they can not produce their own body heat and need another source of heat to keep alive.
Snakes prefer dark spots or hides rather than being out in the open all the time.
Basically what the snake was doing, was hiding in a warm dark spot, using the girls body heat to keep itself alive. The vet that checked out the snake knew nothing about reptiles and so this led to the story being over exagerated and getting out of hand putting fear into parents of kids who kept reptiles.
Majority of snakes are not capable of swallowing humans. Yeah they dislocate their jaws and can open their mouths to 180 degrees BUT the shoulders are so wide that they could not go further than the head, AND even if the snake was big enough, it would have to be atleast 18 feet long or more before it could safely swallow a human without regurgitating the body.
The green anaconda is the exception which can reach 30 feet in length and up to 3 foot in gerth but them specimens are extremely rare.

Satyr_The_Great

li-evo7 wrote: »

True I have heard this story loads of times but part of it may be true. I know a lot of people that have snakes and I know a guy who travels to different countries to learn about them and he keeps loads of burmese pythons etc. Apparently snakes do have the intelligence to measure their prey. And they can starve themselves before they kill it. That is where the story comes from. Snakes can swallow people but it would have to be a very large snake. They crush a person until they break all of the bones and that is how they fit them inside themselves. It may be somewhat true of one person that this 'happened to' but not of all of them. Apparently the snake was coming out of its cage at night and stretching its body out to the length of the owner to measure the size and did this continually for a matter of days or weeks or watever and starved itself in the meantime.

Snakes do kill by crushing, BUT not like most people think. They dont kill by suffocation. They kill buy squeezing everytime you exhale BUT this is not to suffocate, it causes the vessels and arteries in your heart to burst from the pressure..this is how their prey dies...this is only recently discovered in the last few years.

Beekay

Satyr_The_Great wrote: »

Snakes do kill by crushing, BUT not like most people think. They dont kill by suffocation. They kill buy squeezing everytime you exhale BUT this is not to suffocate, it causes the vessels and arteries in your heart to burst from the pressure..this is how their prey dies...this is only recently discovered in the last few years.

Really? Thats really interesting, any links? Always thought it was suffocation that the prey died from since I did a project on snakes in 6th class

Macker1

Newsflash the Snake had already been seen in the vincinity of the grassy knoll a few years back.