What If Biggest Snake Ever Swallowed You Whole

“WARNING! Monster ahead!” Not the best thing to see written on an old wooden sign at the entrance to the rainforest you just ran into. You’re a professional treasure hunter and wildlife explorer.

Right now, you’re being chased by some mean-looking poachers. But those guys are amateurs. You dart left, hide, then run again. Works every time. Why were those guys shouting so much?

Back to business. For several years now, you’ve been on a quest for a pirate’s chest. Inside: a 300-year-old royal medallion. And according to this old map, the chest is somewhere here, in this jungle. Chirping birds, hungry bugs, screaming monkeys, hopefully, nothing too hungry.

You walk to the river and freeze. Suddenly, total silence. Not a single sound anywhere, except the river. Right then, the silence is broken. Something’s definitely sneaking up behind you. You turn around and see a long thick snake’s body.

You raise your head slowly. Two huge fangs are hanging out right above your eyes, and a long forked tongue is gently licking your nose. On the other end of the tongue is a deep, dark mouth, that looks like a black hole. You’d fit in there no problem. You take a step back and stumble over a rock. You fall...that’s the last thing you remember. Then. Darkness.

Looks like you’ll be out for a while, time to find out what monster you just met. Meet Titanoboa. The largest snake that ever lived on Earth, and the largest land vertebrate, after the dinosaurs. It’s 42 feet long. That’s like 7 adults or more than half a subway car. And it could weigh up to 1 and a half tons!

All modern pythons and anacondas are descendants of this ancient reptile, that lived 60 million years ago... except for this one apparently. This snake isn’t venomous, but it uses its long fangs to grab food. And its jaw is built for business. Imagine an empty car being crushed by the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s what it feels like to be a Titanoboa’s afternoon snack.

Back to you. The Titanoboa was about to take a closer look at you, but you fell and passed out. The huge snake wasn’t expecting its lunch to be quite so willing. It sniffs your body, and looks it up and down. Hmm, you’re not a threat, so it doesn’t need to squeeze you before...

The snake opens its wide mouth and begins to swallow. Snakes have a special jaw, divided into several parts. They’re connected by ligaments and muscles. So snakes can open their mouth up wide, like motorbikes wide. But today, Titanoboa doesn’t need to try so hard. Gulp.

Titanoboas use their huge fangs to push food down their throats. While it’s swallowing, Titanoboa likes to use saliva to grease up its lunch and make it more slippery, and much easier to swallow. Bit by bit, you disappear from view. Your clothes are soaking wet at this point. A few minutes later, you’ve disappeared from view, the snake looks really fat. And that’s when you wake up.

So how do we know what would happen? Some guy in a full-body protective suit actually tried to get inside an anaconda... on purpose! Darkness. You open your eyes and take a deep breath. An unpleasant liquid gets in your mouth a bit and you cough. It’s hard to scratch your itchy nose, you’re squeezed in from all sides. Titanoboa has a super muscly throat.

At first, you panic. What happened? Where are you? You scream, but... no sound. It doesn’t exactly smell great in there, and that’s when you realize where you are. You can’t see daylight anymore... uh-oh. Then you feel a weird wiggling, side to side. Titanoboa’s on the move.

A python can digest its lunch in a matter of weeks, it all depends on the size of the food. This Titanoboa just ate a relatively small snack, shouldn’t take it more than a few hours. But there is some good news. Since you’re not that big, you have at least a bit of space to wriggle around in.

You reach into your pants pocket. Your clothes, your hands, they’re soaking wet, nasty. Of course, everything else you brought with you is soaked also, including your map, matches, and granola bar.

Also, there’s not that much air inside a massive snake. You need to conserve oxygen. Finally, you pull out your waterproof flashlight, and it still works! Looks like a tiny red room, with no doors, and no windows.

Then it hits you, your phone! You can just reach it. The screen’s cracked, but it still works. But you’ve only got 4% battery... and there’s no signal! You think about the signal flare strapped to your ankle, the ones you use to light up a dark cave and stuff. But you can’t reach it.

You put all your strength into bending your knees, but you just can’t. Suddenly, you notice that you’ve stopped moving. Snakes like to crawl to a safe resting place after eating a large meal. That’s when it starts releasing more enzymes to help it digest its prize. You’ve got one shot to reach the flare, you need to relax your whole body. You stop moving and start to breathe slowly.

You feel the walls around you start to relax too. You have 1 second to bend down and reach for the flare. You go for it, and your hand slides down your leg, past the knee, almost there. You reach your ankle, but there’s nothing there! It must’ve come loose while you were running through the rainforest!

A few hours pass. You’re well inside Titanoboa’s stomach. Snakes have powerful enzymes that can digest all parts of an animal, so it wouldn’t have problems dealing with clothes and shoes. You feel around with your hands, maybe you can find something to help you, a bone from a previous meal, anything. Your fingers graze over something... a hard, round object.

You manage to get the flashlight on it... no way! It’s the royal medallion you’ve been hunting for. This Titanoboa must be way older than you thought, must’ve had a tasty pirate snack about 300 years ago. How did this snake survive so long? Good diet, plenty of exercises? There’s no chance of escape. You decide to write a final message on your phone, maybe someone will find it after this whole thing is over.

You write that you love your family and have lived a happy life full of adventures. You start to cry, not out of sadness, well a little bit...but mostly because the enzymes are stinging your eyes. It’s done. You put your phone back in your pocket and clutch the medallion tight. You found it! How awesome are you right now!

You close your eyes, and start feeling kind of sleepy. Then your phone buzzes. Someone sent you a text! That means you finally got a signal! You call for help and tell them you’ve been swallowed by a huge snake! You’re saved! But they don’t believe you, and hang up. “Just another prankster.” You call back, but your battery’s done for.

A moment later, the snake begins to move again. You hear strange noises coming from outside. What’s going on? You can feel the snake’s muscles tense up like it’s getting ready to make a dash for it. A few seconds pass, then the snake suddenly relaxes. You hear human voices. You try to shout, but you’re inside a snake, so like...

Wham! A human hand grabs your head. Another hand grabs you by the shoulder and starts to pull. Someone came for you! You pass through the throat and after a couple of minutes, the darkness disappears and sunlight hits your eyes. You’re saved!

"Why did you run away from us? We were trying to warn you!"— Whoa, that guy looks really familiar. It’s the guy that was chasing you earlier! Turns out he wasn’t a poacher, he was a local guide. Apparently, locals are always pulling lost tourists out of Titanoboa’s stomach. They usually just give the snake something to make it sleepy, then pull, pull, pull.

You hug your saviors, and thank them for their help. You’re never going back to that rainforest, that’s for sure. “WARNING! Monster ahead!” A smile spreads over your face, and you reach into your pocket to feel that sweet gold medallion.

NO! It must’ve fallen out, that means it’s still stuck in the snake’s stomach. You look at the rescuers and ask, “You mind if I pop back in there real quick?”

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