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Darwin Award time? Why not to eat a dead snake

By Cindy Steinle · September 29, 2010 3:49 pm

If you're going to try to cheat death, should probably make more than two days' wages in the process. From the perfectly-named reporting agency Weird Asia News:
Now, to be fair, the snake was dead, the victim of revenge by one Zaver Rathod, a 35-year old man whose grasp on common sense and reason apparently weakens when incredibly small amounts of money are involved. Rathod, who killed the snake after it bit his friend in the city of Surat, was encouraged by his friends to eat the dead snake for 100 rupees. The farm laborer eventually became violently ill and ultimately ending up in the hospital with a severe case of nausea and vomiting. In between the violent expelling of his stomach contents, one can only presume he was laughing over the fact that he totally won the bet.
This is one of those stories where you have to wonder if it's true. If it is, the snake species wasn't identified. My best guesses are one of these four: Indian cobra, common krait, Russell’s viper (pictured), and the saw-scaled viper. What do you guess? And do you think it's real? And what would you do for two days' wages?

Comments

Jake Sep 29, 2010

Cool story! I just don't understand how he got sick. Unless it was a venomous snake that bit him after it was dead, like many pit vipers can do even when decapitated, how exactly did he become violently ill? Its to my understanding that you can ingest snake venom without any ill effects because it wont be absorbed by the bloodstream. I mean, snakes are venomous and not poisonous, so how did this happen? Maybe another sickness like salmonella?

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