On June 14, a
cyclist riding along one of the mountain bike trails at the Lake Eland
Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, spotted a very engorged
snake. The cyclist snapped a few photos of the gluttonous python
and posted them to social media, where they quickly attracted the
attention of locals who wanted to see the python themselves.
Lots of people came to the park in the following days just to view the swollen snake, according to Jennifer Fuller, general manager at the game reserve.
Lots of people came to the park in the following days just to view the swollen snake, according to Jennifer Fuller, general manager at the game reserve.
At the time the
photos were taken, no one knew what the snake had eaten, just that it
must have been something fairly large. On the Lake Eland Game Reserve Facebook page,
park staff and visitors speculated as to what the snake may have
swallowed for dinner, suggesting everything from a small warthog to a
baby impala to an errant child (that last one was posted as a joke). [See Images of the Engorged Python Dining on Porcupine]
But on Saturday, June 20, park rangers found the python dead near the
bike trail. They decided to cut it open and have a look inside.What they found was one heck of a snack: a 30-lb. (13.8 kilograms) porcupine.
It isn't unusual for pythons to eat porcupines, Fuller told Live
Science in an email. In fact, many species of snakes eat porcupines and
other horned or quilled animals, according to a study published in 2003 in the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetology. And while a 30-lb. meal might sound like too much to digest, it isn't if you're a python.
As Fuller noted, pythons in the Lake Eland Game Reserve have been
spotted consuming even larger prey, including adult oribi antelope,
which can weigh nearly 50 lbs. (22.7 kg). Pythons possess the incredible
ability to alter their metabolism, as well as the size of their organs,
after a meal. This allows the a python to digest prey that is much
larger than the snake is, according to a study published in 2013 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the 2003 study, entitled
"Prickly food: snakes preying upon porcupines," researchers found that
when a snake eats a porcupine, the animal's quills are left undigested
and are easily detectable in the snake's gut. Sometimes, the quills will
even pierce all the way through the snake's body, according to the
study. But there's no word yet on whether this particular snake died
because it was pierced by quills or because it fell off a ledge (or
because it was pierced by quills as a result of falling off the ledge),
Fuller told the Australian news website News.com.
Rangers at the reserve stripped off the python's skin after removing
the porcupine from the predator's digestive track. They also took
measurements of the snake's massive body, which was 12.8 feet (3.9
meters) long. Special attention was paid to the animal's head, which features a highly flexible jaw that allows the animal to open its mouth wide to swallow prey whole.
Despite popular belief, a python's jaw does not actually dislocate when
the snake is eating. The two lower jaws move independently of one
another, and the quadrate bone at the back of the head attaches the jaw
loosely to the skull, allowing the jaw to move around freely.