It’s obvious why so many people have a debilitating fear of snakes: they’re scaly, they move in a strange way, and they’re sometimes venomous. So it’s no surprise that we instinctively cringe if we ever stumble upon an unfathomably large snake. The bigger they are, the more terrifying, right?

That seemed to be the frightening case for a group of 19th-century rail workers who found a snake they’d never seen before deep in the Australian jungle. It was simply massive! But after they’d taken a closer look, they learned that there was something a bit odd about this gigantic snake…

In the early 19th century, a team of railway workers in a remote portion of the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, were digging into the earth when they stumbled upon something strange… and massive.

At first, the men thought they came across an unfamiliar species of snake. It was ginormous! They brought the creature to the University of Melbourne, hoping that a professor could tell them what it was. But once they realized what it was, they were shocked!