A senior Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) officer, on condition of anonymity, said the reticulated snake was found unconscious late last night.

“It was sad to see the snake die. It had appeared to be in good health earlier,” said the officer when contacted.

The officer said the carcass was incinerated this morning.

Construction workers alerted the Civil Defence Department officers after spotting the snake under a tree in Paya Terubong, close to the Penang Hill range last Thursday.

It was seven metres long and weighed about 250kg.

Rescue workers brought it back to the Civil Defence office in Sungai Ara to be stored.

The Perhilitan officer recalled that a snake of a similar size had swallowed a man in Segamat, Johor, in 1995.

University Malaya Zoological Department naturalist Dr Khew Bong Heang had then been reported as saying  that the python was one of the biggest ever found in Malaysia and was surprised it had been trying to swallow an adult human as snakes normally avoid humans.

Dr Khew then said it was rare for a python to grow to seven metres. The world’s longest recorded python was a reptile measuring 10 metres, which was shot dead in Celebes, Indonesia, in 1912, but the average length was 6.25 metres.

The Guinness Book of World Records recognised the world’s longest snake as a reticulated python in United States in 2011. It measured 7.67m and weighed 158.8kg.