The Borneo Python

There are two species of pythons on Borneo, the more well known of which is the bigger, in fact arguably the biggest and definitely the longest snake in the whole world, Recticulated Python (Python reticulatus). The other species is Python breitensteini the endemic Borneo Python, aka Borneo Short-tailed or Borneo Blood Python. It was until quite recently regarded as a sub-species ot the Sumatran Short-tailed Python and carried the name Python curtus breitensteini.

The trick is to hold it behind the head firmly and to stand back immediately when you release it. It may or may not try to bite your hand or somewhere else! Better still just leave it alone in the first place!

The Borneo Python is a short and stout snake seldom exceeding 1.5 metre (5 feet) in length. It is non-venomous but can give a nasty bite and I learned in a rather painful way that, like people, some individuals are more agressive than others! Some will tolerate handling without trying to bite while some, even baby ones, will strike readily! Over the years working and living in plantations I have found them to be just as common as reticulated pythons, and unfortunately, as they move more slowly they are more often caught (for the pot!) and more are seen as roadkills! Many times I have seen them crossing the road at night especially in wet weather and I always slowed down to watch them cross. Once at night while driving in a hurry I saw one of these fat guys on the roadside, however to my dismay the next morning when I passed the same road it was still there - run over and dead (most likely deliberately by some heartless driver - many people in Borneo are inexplicably anti-snake!)

Unlike the other species, this is a mainly wait-and-ambush hunter, I've never heard of one climbing up a chicken coop to take a bird, and usually lie in wait near ponds and swamp for their prey which are probably mostly rodents and small mammals.

Baby Borneo Pythons are chubby and rather cute looking, even to some of my snake-fearing friends, and one may be tempted to keep them as pets! However though I can never resist picking them up , I now always release them after taking their photos...

Cute baby.

The correct thing to do is to set it free!

Close Encounter With a Python

It was in January, 1977. In the heyday of the golden crop, Cocoa, in a plantation right in the middle of the best cocoa land in the country - the Quion Hill Area of Tawau, Sabah. In this plantation only the best land was planted with the golden crop, while the so-called marginal soils were planted with a side crop - Oil Palm.

Well this post is not about crops, it's about a fatal encounter with a giant Bornean reptile, fortunately for the humans involved, it's fatal- but not to the humans!

Rajoo, a transplanted Tamil worker from Johor (Muar-mari) was taking his 5-year-old son to harvest his block of oil palm at the edge of the plantation with his faithful dog leading the way when all of a sudden he heard a loud sharp yelp from his dog who was just out of sight around a corner from him. His son was just a few yards behind the dog. When he reached the spot where the sound came from he was horrified to see his dog in the massive coils of a python with his child rooted to the ground in front of the gruesome spectacle. He quickly grabbed hold of his boy and ran back to the kongsi to alert the other workers.

By the time the workers arrive at the scene, the python had already swallowed half of the lifeless dog! With sticks and stones the workers made short work of the reptile which had spat out the unfortunate canine, and paraded their kill to the plantation office to show the Tuan (my boss)!

Fortunately I had a loaded (film, of course) camera with me and took a few photos for posterity!
I also took out a measuring tape and found that this monster python measured "only" 20 feet, short of the standing world record then! (The Guinness Book of World Record listed the longest snake ever found at 32.75 feet - a specimen shot in Sulawesi in 1912)

Note: Python reticulatus the Asiatic Reticulated Python is one of the two species of pythons found on Borneo. The other species is the much shorter and smaller Borneo Short-Tailed Python now recognised as a species in its own right: Python breitensteini.

[The pic shows Rajoo standing at the head of the snake, while the brave man pulling the (dead) snake's tail is Lawrence Kuloi the plantation's official hunter i.e. pests exterminator!]{click image to see full sized photo}