Tokyo Police in urban Japan were Monday probing the death of a man whose body was found next to a 21-foot python.
Shoji Fujita, 66, was found dead outside his home in Ushiku city, 50 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, with a reticulated python sitting next to him, a local police spokesman said.
The snake was kept by his son, who operated an exotic pet store in the same city, the spokesman said.
Fujita died after telling his wife he was going outside to check the temperature of a locked reptile compound next to the couple's house.
Autopsy
When he failed to return, the woman went to check and found her recumbent husband with bite marks on his head and right arm, the spokesman said, adding that an autopsy was being carried out to determine the cause of death.
"We believe there is a high likelihood of an accident," in which somehow the snake got out of its container and killed Fujita, the police spokesman said.
The reticulated python, which is native to Southeast Asia, is a carnivore that kills its prey by constriction. The snake's usual diet is animals up to the size of a primate or pig, but a small number of fatal attacks on humans have been reported, with some attacks resulting in the victim being swallowed whole.
Large pythons were the subject of many news stories last year due to the fact that there were at least two deaths directly attributable to them.
Tragically, the deaths would not have happened had the owners of these snakes kept them safely and responsibly contained, experts said.
The recent case in Colorado of a 15-year-old boy's death caused by a Burmese python resulted in considerable sensational media coverage as well as widely varying estimates of the snake's length and weight
The teenager was allegedly still in bed when he was bitten by his pet snake. Numerous tooth impressions were present on the fingers of both hands. Experts said there was no evidence that the snake, measuring 336 centimetres and weighing 24 kilograms, had attempted to swallow any part of the victim.
— With additional inputs from agencies
