Has gramps been drinkin' or it's true?!

[JimmyDavid]

We all know those old ex-marines always like to have a tale or 2 to impress folks. Sometimes they tell the truth, but most of the times it's a bunch of crap.
Let's play Sherlock Holmes here. read the story and tell what you think: Is this one of those true war stories or has gramps been drinking again. (hehe, this should be fun)


www.subicbaypi.com/sub_stories_python.htm

[zero&stich]

I say gramps wasn't drunk. More like he should lay off the shrooms.

I believe it to be an old "fisherman's tale" Ya know when someone says the trout was 20 inches when it really was 6 inches..

I say this because if this snake did constrict a "40 lb pit", which that itself is small, but if it actually did do this and killed its prey and decided it wasn't interested in swallowin it and left the carcas. It is very unlikely that the snake found the body and swallowed it for one reason:

1. C'mon, snakes don't have the intelligance like a blood hound nor the acute nose, seein how Sheperds and hounds are used to track drugs and bodies, if it "aint wiggling and giving off any type of vibrations" theres is a very good chance no cold-blood animal will be able to track something rotting. Especially, knowing the EXACT place where it killed the dog?? Think of it this way, everyone has dealt with this. You're snake constricting the rat and may refuse to eat it. Take into an account it is in a smaller enclosure and the scent and heat coming off the animal is still viable for a good while. That is in a small enclosure. So how is this other snake able to track its previous prey from miles away??? So....Do I get a cookie

The other is if this guy which sounds to be some type of warden should know selling skin is usually illegal, especially making a belt out of it??? Can I have two cookies ....

[tonyj]

When I was a wee laddie of no more than ten summers, I was wandering along the shores of Loch Ness with two of my pals; it was a hot summer evening during the summer school break.

My friends and I were throwing boulders into the loch and creating quite a noise and having great fun.

The sun was beginning to drop behind the mountains behind us, and our shadows were beginning to lengthen.

Suddenly there was a loud scream and a cry for help from Alex, who was hidden from Jimmy and me by a large willow.
We ran towards the cries of Alex just in time to see him being dragged slowly into the loch by a large creature......

This was over fifty years ago, and to this day we never spoke to anyone about it.
Adults would never have believed us and we would have been in trouble for playing too close to the loch.

After our sworn pact we buried the creature, but not before we had each cut a piece of its flesh away as a memento of our adventure that summer so long ago.

Oh, by the way on our way home that evening we were chased by a large farm dog that was intent on doing us a great deal of harm.

In order to save our souls we threw the chunks of monster flesh at the dog, who stopped, sniffed, then ate the flesh we had thrown his way.

The dog lost all interest in the three of us, but I still remember that great shaggy dog, of so many years ago, back in Scotland.

[JimmyDavid]

The area was Subic, that's phillipines. That's retic territory, so the snake (if real) must have been a retic. The lenght and weight match for a retic, so either gramps had great herp skills or took a wild guess and hit the jackpot. The swallowing process seems well described also.
But the fact that he confessed to be drunk all the time doesn't favour him.
I'll give it a 50-50 chance of being true.

[zero&stich]

What through me off, was when he said the animal sucessfully strangled the dog, left it then was able to re-locate the dead carcas? He made the story come off as if they were quite a few men around so seein how snakes are a shy animal it's unlikely the snake did return. But the location never crossed my mind. Good work JimmyDavid.

Lesson learned, don't drink alochol, while on duty, lol.

[snakehunter]

WELL water moccasins are known to be scavengers and it is not rare that one will snatch up some rotting lunch. This being said I think the whole story is still a crock.
-Jacob

[peterm15]

i say plausable... embilished but plausable....

[JimmyDavid]

I've had some of my snakes refusing food, leaving the item for half an hour and then coming back to eat it. But , of course, that all took place inside an enclosure, where the snake wasn't going anywhere. In the jungle, once the snake goes away, it's not likely that she comes back. Not impossible, just hard...

[Gary D.]

First part of the story regarding the retic and the pitbull seems quite plauseable. As for the boots and belt, one should also keep in mind that as Jimmy pointed out this was in the Phillipines. In the majority of Asia (and most under developed countries), locals don't really care about wildlife laws. The promise of a few Amarican Dollars is far more important.

As for the sense of smell, well you all seem somewhat pessimistic. When in fact the majority of snakes rely on sense of smell while hunting. There have been studies in which a viper was to follow a maze of dropletts of scented and unscented water. The snake was successfull 100%of the time. It's believed that the sense of smell in a snake is as much as 100x more sensitive than a blood hound. As for reclaiming it's prey, that too doesn't seem too unlikely to me. For the reason that the attack is unlikely to have taken place in the middle of a compound, more likely somewhere out of the way, perhaps along the tree line so the dog had somewhere to urinate and defficate and the owner would not be required to scoop and bag it (again remamber we are in the phillipines on an army base likely without pet control bylaws). The snake could have been just out of sight under cover of the brush. When scared off it would not have to retreat far into the bush to be hidden, especially as he does state that it is night time. Nor is a time frame given in which the snake returned. It could have been as little as 10 or 15 minutes. And I am quite certain that most of us here, although familiar with captive reptiles, are not truly qualified to authoritatively state how a wild Retic would behave in it's native habitat. In opposition to anthropomorphism of reptiles, I believe we often under estimate their abilities. The second part of the story about the roadside incident is not unheard of from other stories as well. The road would likely be no more that a dirt track, which a simple 10' snake could likely obstruct completely. Although it probably crawled off into the bush to die later of internal injuries.

Both of his anecdotes are quite possible, although likely embellished and the admission of intoxication, certainly makes the details less credible.

GD

Edit: typo

[ravensgait]

Don't know if it's true or not but that was one really large base. There was a lot of wildlife on base as compared to off as the locals didn't seem to mind killing the critters for food or what have you, on base unless it was a problem it was protected. I saw a few pretty large snakes( I assume they were retic's they were seen crossing roads at night) when I was at Clark AFB in the early 80s the biggest was only 10 feet give or take but wouldn't be surprised if there were larger ones around. Subic bay was huge and Clark even bigger and they both had so many rats that the pied piper lived in fear lol. Randy

[ravensgait]

Just as a side note ,While I was there I saw a really big tom cat get his butt kicked and was thrown out of a tree by a Rat. The cat didn't land on it's feet either. rats were a big problem over there.