A young woman kept a huge python at home: one day the snake began to behave strangely, stopped eating and
coiled itself around its owner’s waist: Then the woman discovered something terrifying about it
The young woman had a python she called Safran – because of the golden spots on its scales. The yellow python
had come into her life three years earlier and quickly became “domesticated.” Her relatives frowned: “Be careful, it’s a
predator.” But she only smiled: “She’s tame. She loves me and would never hurt me.”
However, over time, the snake began to behave strangely.
The first troubling signs appeared almost unnoticed. Safran stopped eating. At night, she would crawl out of the
terrarium and stretch out alongside the woman’s body – her head at the shoulder, her tail at the ankles. Sometimes
she wrapped loosely around her waist and lay still, as if counting the ribs.
During the day, she chose the cool floor by the bed, exactly where the woman walked barefoot, and lay there for
hours, moving only the tip of her tail slightly, her gaze fixed on the spot where the human chest rose and fell.
And then – the muted “hugs”: the snake would slither toward her throat and linger under the collarbone, touching the
skin with her forked tongue. The woman joked that it was a kiss. But more and more often she woke up at night –
from the weight pressing on her chest.
Until one night she woke with a start at the snake’s sudden hiss and realized it was time to see a veterinarian. And
then she learned something terrifying about her pet, which finally made her understand just how dangerous it is to
keep a wild animal at home. Continued in the first comment
The doctor calmly weighed the python, palpated it, and listened to the accounts of the nightly “hugs” and refusal to
eat.
— “You see,” he finally said, “this isn’t affection. In large pythons, fasting and stretching along the owner’s body are
typical behaviors before attempting to swallow large prey. The snake is measuring whether the size is right. The
coiling is rehearsal for constriction. You have a fully grown, strong female. She’s powerful enough to cut off your
breathing. Rarely, but such cases do occur. In short: your snake was preparing to swallow you. My recommendation
is clear: strict isolation, a change of diet, and – better yet – surrendering her to a specialized facility. Today.”
The words struck her like ice. That evening, the woman sat on the edge of her bed and watched as Safran slowly
glided across the sheet. At one point, the snake lay exactly as in that photo: coiled in a ring around a sleeping woman
– only this time, the woman wasn’t asleep.
Carefully, she lifted the snake, placed her back in the terrarium, snapped the lock shut, and sat down on the floor
beside it.
In the morning, she called the city reptile center. Safran was taken away that same day – in a spacious crate, to
experienced handlers and with proper food.