CATCHING snakes is the daily job of Amir Hamidy, a researcher of the Herpetology Laboratory of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) Bogor Zoological Museum. But he had to think twice when he had to catch a bush python (Morelia amesthistina) on Waigeo, one of the Raja Ampat group of islands, Papua.

The sleeping serpent on the branch of a tree is not a venomous one but it is dangerous, as the 3.5-meter-long snake can crush a big animal.