21-foot python now at U.S. alligator farm

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla., Jan. 26 (UPI) -- A Florida alligator farm is now home to what may be the longest snake in captivity -- a 21-foot, 9-inch reticulated python.

The snake was captured by villagers on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.

They told Brady Barr, a National Geographic herpetologist who was filming a TV show on snakes in the country, about their find and he called the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, The St. Augustine Record reported.

Seven adults held the snake this week as it was measured with TV cameras recording the action.

"There are a lot of places that claim to have a 20-foot snake, but they'll never measure them with cameras rolling," Barr said.

Barr said that the snake could be as much as 50 years old. Few pythons of that length are found because most are killed by humans.

When he learned of the snake, Barr was in a Singapore hospital after being bitten by a comparatively tiny 12-foot python. He feared that the big one would become "many pairs of shoes" before he was released.

The snake weighs only 140 pounds. But it has 10,000 muscles in its lean frame.