People are awesome: 49-foot python captured in Indonesia, biggest snake!

Indonesian villagers claim to have captured a python that is almost 49 feet long and weighs nearly 990 pounds. It would be the largest snake ever kept in captivity.

Hundreds of people have flocked to see the snake at a primitive zoo in Curugsewu village on the country’s main island of Java. The reticulated python measured 48 feet 8 inches and weighed in at 983 pounds. Eats three or four dogs a month.

The Guinness Book of World Records lists the longest ever captured snake to be 32 feet. The heaviest — a Burmese Python kept in Gurnee, Ill. — weighs 402 pounds, the book said on its Web site.

Reticulated pythons are the world’s longest snakes. They are capable of eating animals as large as sheep, and have been known to attack and consume humans. The species is native to the swamps and jungles of Southeast Asia.