The inside of a snake’s oesophagus is not the most pleasant of places to be. I’ve come to this conclusion after having only the distal third of my right index finger down a snake’s oesophagus. I imagine having my whole body down there would be an even more unpleasant experience.

It started as a regular little play with one of my pet snakes, Sam (not named by me). Sam’s a Children’s python (Antaresia childreni), and is not normally inclined to bite once he’s out of his enclosure. I was pointing my right index finger at his head in an affectionate manner, when he decided that I looked like a bit of alright and that he should probably try to eat me, starting with my finger.

This is Sam…

See Sam bite.

I think that’s my blood…

To persuade him to let go of me, I stuck his head in a sink full of water. Snakes can hold their breath for a while, but they need to breathe eventually.

I said PULL it, not BITE it!

So I gave Sam a choice: let go of my finger, or drown.

Sam managed to get two thirds of my finger down his throat

Thankfully he picked the letting-go-of-my-finger option.

Sam’s saliva and my blood

The culprit

Some bloody saliva

I picked half a dozen teeth out of my finger. Snakes have their teeth break off all the time, so Sam doesn’t mind at all. I, on the other hand, have never had snake teeth (or any other sort of teeth for that matter) embedded in me. There was a lot less blood than I thought there would be. Last time I got bitten by one of my snakes my thumb bled for a while. I’m putting tonight’s decidedly unbloody episode down to Sam swallowing most of the blood that leaked out of my finger. Just as long as he doesn’t get a taste for it.

This entry was posted on Monday January 16th, 2006 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Animal photos, Reptile Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.