Python
An Indonesian man wrestled a 23-foot-long python and lived to tell the tale. In this photo, a 12-foot-long Burmese python that was captured in the backyard of a home slithers on the ground at its new home at the A.D. Barnes Park in south Miami, Florida, Oct. 10, 2005. Getty Images/ Robert Sullivan

Villagers of the Indragiri Hulu Regency of Riau Province in Indonesia enjoyed feasting on a 23-foot-long python after a local man, Robert Nababan, wrestled and killed the beast on Saturday.

"I have heard from friends that they are really tasty,” Elinaryon, head of the Batang Gansal district government said about pythons. “I mean it's a 7m snake — that's a lot of meat! The blood, some people believe, has healing qualities and can be used in medicine."

While his villagers literally tasted the fruit of Nababan’s victory, the brave local remains admitted in a hospital in Pekanbaru city, where he is still recovering after the gruesome battle with the reptile.

“I tried to catch it. It bit my arm, and we wrestled for a while,” Nababan said from his hospital bed. He has sustained deep wounds in his left arm where the predator had sunk its razor-sharp teeth. According to BBC, hospital officials said his arm has been so badly damaged in the fight that they might have to “cut it off.”

Nababan, 37, encountered the deadly creature when he was returning from a palm oil plantation, where he works as a security guard. As he rode his moped home, he found the reptile blocking the way as it made its way from one side to the other.

With the help of two other pedestrians, Nababan decided to move the snake to one side of the road. That is when the python turned on him and started attacking him. It pinned Nababan to the ground as it coiled its body around Nababan to paralyze its prey. However, Nababan managed to kill the python.

The snake's corpse was strung between two trees like a washing line in a part of the village to remind people of the near impossible 'man versus beast' battle that Nababan managed to win, Coconuts Jakarta reported.

Giant pythons are not that rare in the remote district of Sumatra. "[There are] at least 10 sightings of them a year,” Elinaryon said. “In the dry season they come out looking for a drink, in the wet, they come out to take a bath in the rain. There are usually lots of mice in the palm oil plantations and that's what they are hunting."

However, just because Nababan was brave enough to tackle the predator does not mean that humans need not be wary of the reptile. “You really shouldn't try to do that... of course the snake, if you try and kill it, is going to get really angry and that's when it fights back!" Elinaryon said.

In an unfortunate incident, the dead body of 25-year-old Akbar Salubiro was swallowed by a huge python that he encountered when he went to harvest palm oil in a remote village on the island of West Sulawesi in March, News reported.

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