The body of a missing woman has been found inside a python in Indonesia's Jambi province. The woman, Jahrah, 50, went missing on Sunday morning after going to work on her rubber plantation.

When she did not return that night, a search team went out to look for her, without success. A day later, villagers spotted a python and became suspicious. They killed the snake and recovered the woman's body from inside it.

Betara Jambi police chief AKP S Harefa told local media: "The missing woman was found inside the snake." Her body was largely intact. He said her husband had found some of her clothes and tools at the rubber plantation on Sunday night and then called a search team.

He said the snake was at least 5 metres (16 feet) long. Local people killed it after catching it on Monday. When they cut open its belly, they found Jahrah's body inside.

Such incidents are rare, but this is not the first in Indonesia. Two other people died in the same way in 2017 and 2018.

Pythons swallow their food whole. Their jaws are joined by very flexible ligaments so they can stretch around large prey. An expert previously told the BBC that pythons usually eat rats and other animals. "But once they reach a certain size, it's almost as if they can't be bothered with rats any more, because there's no calorie value," the expert said.

Mary-Ruth Low, a wildlife conservation and research officer in Singapore, said: "Essentially, they can be as big as their prey." Pythons can eat animals as large as pigs and even cows.

Citing the BBC.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.