chosen04:

Do you want me to pick the holes in the story before you believe its FAKE?

What makes it real in the 1st place. Cos it was originally posted through a Blackberry?

It would be nice if you could actually pick holes in the story than just discarding it as FAKE!

I did a google search on the story and it appears their are quite a number of blogs talking about it, apparently you seem to be the only smart one that has found some loopholes in the story, it might just be cool for you to share your findings with the rest of us, otherwise, could you kindly shut the fúck up?

On more pleasantant matters, I would like to knw what happened to that snakes meat,

I'm sure its in a soup by now.

Tragic.  For the snake to have swallowed the baby,a lot of time would have elapsed and it leaves one to ask where the hell the mother went.    Again the residence of the mother and child must have been close to a forest,thick enough to habour a snake of this scary size, . .parents and their lackadaisical attitude to little details

KAI! How horrific!

Terrible thing. I heard about it but people put a swing on the story cuz of the location of the mishap, Okada. Sad sad thing.

i hope they cut the python open to check?

why was the baby left alone on the porch?

did the python come from a nearby forest or was it kept by someone- possibly as a totem, or shrine?

where are the parents?

hope the snake swallowed a goat and not a baby?

The Western Igbos used to worship snakes such as these.

the story may be fake, thank goodness.


http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa061101a.htm

The bulge looks bigger than a 6 months old baby and with the alignment of the swolen prey resembles that of an animal walking on four limbs.

tpiah!:

the story may be fake, thank goodness.


http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa061101a.htm

Damn !!!!!

Jakumo:

That is an African Rock python, of the type domesticated by villagers in Cutonou, Nigeria's immediate westerly neighbor.

Being non-venomous, all pythons kill by first biting the prey and then suffocating it by coiling around the victim twice or more times, whereupon the coils tighten incrementally with each exhalation of the prey, causing death within a couple of minutes.  The second, more time consuming stage of the process involves the snake carefully re-arranging the now-dead prey item in order to swallow it head first.  Disengaging its lower jaw, the serpent can swallow prey items of much wider girth than its head.  The swallowing is performed by "walking" its needle like teeth down the prey item from the crown of the head, to the tail or hind feet, with the snake SLOWLY pulling its elastic body over to enclose that of the prone prey victim, which then gradually recedes out of view and down the reptile's digestive tract.  

With a prey item that is disproportionately larger than the snake's head, which is the case in the above pictures, the process of completely swallowing the prey item can take up to 30 minutes.  It is thus highly unlikely that an infant left unattended for "two minutes"  could have been COMPLETELY swallowed as shown in this picture.  A far more probable scenario is that the bulge in that serpent's belly is actually an animal rather than a person, OR, that a child was in fact left alone for AT LEAST 30 minutes, and NOT a few moments as claimed by the lost child's mother.

Burmese pythons do, on rare occasion, stalk, strike and swallow adult human beings, and in Nigeria, rumours have abounded for decades about African Rock Pythons big enough to kill and eat a man. Outside of protected areas like Yankari Game Reserve, however, the pressures of hunting and trapping greatly reduce the chances of any snake living long enough to attain the sort of extreme bulk needed to subdue and eat adult humans.

Good analysis.

EzeUche_:

The Western Igbos used to worship snakes such as these.

Uche I think you might be referring to a much smaller cousin of the African Rock Python, called the Ball Python, as being the one that has been domesticated in some Igbo villages over generations, for the specific purpose of keeping rats under control in homes.   The Ball Python, which never grows more than 3 or 4 feet in length, is so named because it curls up into a ball as a defence mechanism, if grabbed or prodded during its daytime rest period.  The Igbo name for that species translates to mean " the shame snake ", in that it hides its head when it curls up into that defensive ball shape, seemingly in shame.  Domesticated ball pythons which die of natural causes or by accident are given befitting traditional burials by the villagers in whose homes the reptiles lived and served.

Ball pythons are also very popular in the US pet trade, and are bred in captivity by pet stores, along with the rats they eat, for sale to reptile lovers.

^^^^

Hey, Steve Irwin,

What type of snake is this supposed to be:  https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-582176.192.html#msg7956179

A python, or an adder?

Jakumo:

The Igbo name for that species translates to mean " the shame snake ", in that it hides its head when it curls up into that defensive ball shape, seemingly in shame.  Domesticated ball pythons which die of natural causes or by accident are given befitting traditional burials by the villagers in whose homes the reptiles lived and served.

Very interesting!

I would have never thought of using snakes as an anti-rodent enforcer. I'm glad to hear about Africans utilizing their environment in ingenious ways like this.

Hard to tell from that beautiful work of art, Physics.  That crafted snake head is probably worth some serious money though.   Yeah, I was a fan of the late Steve Irwin, but he was just too reckless to live long, and I knew it was just a matter of time before a venomous snake or a huge croc would take him by surprise and prove faster than his martial arts reflexes.  I never expected that a sting ray would be the species that would wind up killing him though.

American Dr. Brady Barr, the current uber-herpetologist on Discovery Channel, is WAY more cautious than Steve Irwin was, and will likely live out his old age with no "accidents".

Jakumo:

That is an African Rock python, of the type domesticated by villagers in Cutonou, Nigeria's immediate westerly neighbor.

Being non-venomous, all pythons kill by first biting the prey and then suffocating it by coiling around the victim twice or more times, whereupon the coils tighten incrementally with each exhalation of the prey, causing death within a couple of minutes.  The second, more time consuming stage of the process involves the snake carefully re-arranging the now-dead prey item in order to swallow it head first.  Disengaging its lower jaw, the serpent can swallow prey items of much wider girth than its head.  The swallowing is performed by "walking" its needle like teeth down the prey item from the crown of the head, to the tail or hind feet, with the snake SLOWLY pulling its elastic body over to enclose that of the prone prey victim, which then gradually recedes out of view and down the reptile's digestive tract.  

With a prey item that is disproportionately larger than the snake's head, which is the case in the above pictures, the process of completely swallowing the prey item can take up to 30 minutes.  It is thus highly unlikely that an infant left unattended for "two minutes"  could have been COMPLETELY swallowed as shown in this picture.  A far more probable scenario is that the bulge in that serpent's belly is actually an animal rather than a person, OR, that a child was in fact left alone for AT LEAST 30 minutes, and NOT a few moments as claimed by the lost child's mother.

Burmese pythons do, on rare occasion, stalk, strike and swallow adult human beings, and in Nigeria, rumours have abounded for decades about African Rock Pythons big enough to kill and eat a man. Outside of protected areas like Yankari Game Reserve, however, the pressures of hunting and trapping greatly reduce the chances of any snake living long enough to attain the sort of extreme bulk needed to subdue and eat adult humans.

I beg to differ, it doesnt take 30 mins. . . .Based on some other videos I've watched.
I've seen a video showing how a snake swallowed an alligator/ hippo in less than 30 mins. . . .so time might be a factor, but it does not rule out the authenticity of this video.

The question still remains, why was a 6mos old baby left outside, alone?

I am from Okada. I live in Okada. I write from Okada right now. It is a lie , no python swallowed any baby at Okada. Whoever made up this story is a goat, and the gods of Okada will surely swallow your fucking ass up.

I doubt a child was eaten.
The feet of the onlookers didn't portray that.
I would expect a commotion type of atmosphere in such circumstance.
They seem to be enjoying the spectacle

I can't believe that people believe this story!!!

1. How do they know that it is a baby in the snake's belly. they must have x-ray vision, or something like that.
2. If they know that it is a snake, then at least 1 person must have watched the snake take its time to strangle and then swallow the baby.
3. Smaller snakes stay away from places where humans live, not to talk of a snake that size. The parents of the child probable live alone in the middle of the forest
4. After swallowing a child, do you think it is normal Nigerian/human behavior to stand and watch They would have sliced that snake's belly in an instant to retrieve the child at east for burial. it is unfortunate that the cameraman didn't wait that long to take the remaining pictures.

or maybe his battery ran out.

Ileke-IdI:

I beg to differ, it doesnt take 30 mins. . . .Based on some other videos I've watched.
I've seen a video showing how a snake swallowed an alligator/ hippo in less than 30 mins. . . .so time might be a factor, but it does not rule out the authenticity of this video.

The question still remains, why was a 6mos old baby left outside, alone?

I also beg to differ ma'am.

I have seen the Boa Constrictor, which is much bigger than a python (Before its demise in the early 2000s), at the University of Ibadan zoo feed on a young goat.

The complete process took close to 45 mins. I'm sure a good number of the Zoology students would bear me witness on this. It takes quite a while for these guys to swallow prey that's bigger than their heads. A lot of the videos we see on NatGeoWild are abridged and they only allow us see where the 'action' is, not the full length process.

If the mother was in the United States, social services would have taken the surviving children and then arrest her for child neglect. Wow, this is very sad. She will never forgive herself for those few moments of absence.