Chinese man hand-feeds pet snake, suffers serious bite, leads to thumb amputation

A Beijing man who hand-fed his pet snake when it was ill was bitten by the reptile and ended up having his thumb amputated. The incident was reported by China’s state media CCTV on December 18. The man, surnamed Huang, kept the long-nosed viper as a pet because he had been interested in snakes since childhood. Chinese folklore has it that anyone bitten by such a reptile, also known as a “five step snake” in China, will die after walking five steps. Not long ago, Huang’s snake fell ill and was...