Ngo Van Tuy, 49, from Ly Son Island in the central province of Quang Ngai, said there are 30 species of butterflies on Ly Son Island and he has eaten all of them in the past 20 years.
Ly Son Island has many strange persons, for example the old man who goes to every funeral on the island to work free of charge; another spends his whole life taking clay from the mouth of a volcano to make statues of those who die on the sea; one old woman does every job like collecting rubbish, serving funerals, charwoman, etc. to feed up to over 100 disadvantaged children.
But the strangest among them may be Tuy, who has eaten around 400 species of under-earth animals, from ants to flies, bugs, mantises, beetles, etc.
A terrifying show
What animal do you want to see me eat? Tuy asked.
“How about a live snake?”
All right, wait a moment! he replied. He went to the field for ten minutes and returned with a live snake in his hand. He raised the snake high and everyone realised that the snake was still alive and very strong. He said the snake belongs to a typical snake species on Ly Son Island and it was highly venomous. Some old people watching the show verified that the snake belongs to the copperhead family, called Bu Nac.
“How did you catch the snake so quickly?”
Tuy smiled and said: “Sometimes I don’t understand how it happens. When I want to eat a snake, I think of them and it seems there is someone who leads me to a snake hole. When you told me you wanted to see me eat a snake, I went to the field. I heard the sound of a toad being eaten by a snake. Following the sound, I found this snake in a hole.”
“Do you believe that this toad is still alive?” “No,” all viewers said. Tuy pulled the snake out and passed his hand over the snake’s body. A small toad spurted out from the snake’s mouth. Tuy picked up the toad, put it into his mouth and swallowed. After that, he picked up several insects and ate them. He then put the tail of the live snake into his mouth and began to chew it. He ate the whole snake. All viewers were worried that he could be poisoned but he said he has eaten many species of live animals and snakes as well.
Scientists should do research
Tuy was born and grew up on Ly Son Island. He joined the army at the age of 17. He still remembers clearly that nearly 30 years ago, on a moonlit night, he was sitting on a hill overlooking the sea as a sea guard when he saw an ant carrying a white termite egg on his rifle. He had heard that minority people in the Central Highlands often eat ants and termite eggs. He gnawed the tiny termite egg and found it wonderful. He sought termite and ant eggs under dead tree trunks to eat.
After tasting termite and ant eggs, he tried to eat other kinds of live animals like ants and termites, other small insects, and birds, etc.
The first time he surprised locals was when he ate a live fish. He went to the local market to buy fish for his wife. He told a fish seller that her fish was not fresh while the seller insisted that it was. He said “let me try” and ate a fish live.
A neighbour of Tuy’s family said she saw Tuy hoeing up ground to seek worms to eat.
“I’ve tried to all kinds of insects and animals on Ly Son Island and all of them are tasty,” Tuy said.
So far, Tuy has never been poisoned because of eating live animals, even those with venom like toads and snakes.
“I want to research my own ability so I often watch TV programmes about odd things. I watched a long show on which a Thai man was introduced who has eaten four scorpions at once and a European man who ate four cockroaches and earned $50,000. I can eat 100 scorpions and their venom and up to 1,000 cockroaches to make my stomach full,” Tuy said
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