He wrestled a giant python barefoot for a video. For a moment, the snake was winning

A video that spread across X this week shows a barefoot man in shorts crouching in the dirt and grabbing a snake as thick as a car tyre. A muscular, tattooed man grapples with a huge snake in what looks like a palm plantation. People stand around filming. One viewer wrote that the snake "almost had him."

The snake in the video looks like a reticulated python. That is the longest snake in the world. People in the replies were quick to say so, and they are right to.

Is it an anaconda or a reticulated python?

It is almost certainly a reticulated python. Several replies said "It's not an anaconda," and the markings back that up. The animal in the video has a pattern of dark diamonds with pale outlines. That is the "reticulated" look, named for a net.

One reply put the difference like this: The green anaconda is dark green with black spots and lives mostly in water. The python is a land and tree snake from Southeast Asia. That fits what herpetologists say.

Palm plantations are common across Indonesia and Malaysia. That is why many viewers guessed the clip was filmed there. Nobody who posted it has said where it was shot, so we cannot confirm the country.

How big can a reticulated python really get?

Bigger than most people think. In January 2026, a wild female nicknamed the Baroness was measured at 7.22 metres (23 feet 8 inches) in Maros, South Sulawesi. Guinness confirmed her as the longest wild snake ever formally measured.

Her real length may be more. Snakes stretch when they are relaxed under anaesthetic, and she could be at least 10% longer than the tape showed.

Guinness also lists a python of 10 metres, said to have been shot in Sulawesi in 1912. Some experts doubt it because there is little proof. Herpetologist John Murphy puts the real maximum at about 8 to 9 metres.

Photo: Steve Wilson - over 6 million views Thanks !! from Chester, UK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Nobody measured the snake in the video, so we do not know its size. It looks thick enough to cover the man's whole body.

Has a python like this ever killed an adult?

Yes. The cases are rare, but they are documented.

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In March 2017, a 25-year-old man called Akbar Salubiro went missing in Sulawesi. Villagers found a bloated 7-metre python. They cut it open, according to news reports at the time. The man was inside.

In June 2018, 54-year-old Wa Tiba did not come home from her vegetable garden on Muna island, also in Sulawesi. Villagers found a python of about 7 metres with a swollen belly about 50 metres from her belongings.

That is two adults in about 15 months, both on or beside Sulawesi, both involving snakes of about the same length as the Baroness.

Sources for the table are in the list at the end. A reply to the clip also mentioned a 2024 attack. We could not find a report to back that up, so we left it out.

How does a python actually kill?

Not the way cartoons show it. For years people said constrictors squeeze until you cannot breathe. Scott Boback, a snake researcher at Dickinson College, told National Geographic that the evidence points to cardiac arrest instead. The coils stop blood from flowing, and the heart gives up.

That is why a few seconds in a python's grip can matter. The man in the clip is trained, his fans say. Some replies call him a jiu-jitsu fighter. Others say he does this every day. None of that is verified, and nobody has named him.

Photo: Achmad Rabin Taim from Jakarta, Indonesia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Why are so many viewers angry at the man?

Because they think the snake is the one in danger.

"Leave animals alone," one reply says. Another says he is "unnecessarily stressing out the animal to show off." Herpetologists warn the same about handling wild snakes for clicks. Reptile experts say rough handling stresses snakes, and a big wild animal does not choose to be a star.

The other side is just as loud. Some replies joke that he is a "blue belt in jiu-jitsu, black belt in the jungle." Others say the snake was one move away from the crew behind the camera killing it.

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It is the same pull as the giant waterlily found through a jungle selfie and the count of 180,000 giant tortoises: Big animals and plants stop the scroll. That is the split that makes the clip travel. Brave to some, cruel to others, and a funny fail waiting to happen to the rest.

Could the man have lost?

That is what half the replies are asking. "One day the snake will win," one says. It is not a silly guess.

A python of 7 metres is the size of the two that killed adults in Sulawesi. It does not need to be fast. It only needs one coil around a limb. The man's friends are standing nearby, but they are filming.

We cannot tell from the clip how long it ran or what happened after it ended. We also do not know if the snake was hurt.

Photo: Jeremiah Kurniawan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

What does the clip not show?

How it ends. We see the grapple, the crowd and the phone cameras. We do not see the minutes before or after, or whether the snake was hurt.

We also do not see what a python that size can do. The Baroness, measured this January, is 7.22 metres long. The snake that swallowed Akbar Salubiro in 2017 was about 7 metres. The one found near Wa Tiba's garden in 2018 was about the same.

The man in the video keeps his grip and walks away with views. Those two villagers did not get a clip. They got a python the same length as this year's world record.

Ask yourself how many of the people in the replies would stay within arm's reach.

Sources: Guinness World Records (Baroness record, Medusa), CBS News and Bangkok Post (Akbar Salubiro, 2017), Inquirer, Khaosod English and ABC affiliates (Wa Tiba, 2018), National Geographic (Boback, cardiac arrest).