Sometimes, what we choose to eat doesn’t always agree with us, and a 13-foot African Rock Python learned that decision the hard way after making a large porcupine its dinner.
After swallowing the 30-pound porcupine whole, the porcupine’s quills punctured the python’s innards dozens of times, causing the giant snake great suffering, then death. The python literally ate itself to death, reports the Daily Mail.
The bloated python was first discovered by a man riding a mountain bike. The large snake laid next to a cycle track at South Africa’s Lake Eland Game Reserve near Port Shepstone. Later in the day, the python was found under a rock ledge by reserve managers. Reserve managers believe the python fell off the rock ledge while trying to digest the porcupine.
Photos of the python were posted to the reserve’s Facebook page. As a response to the photo, the reserve posted: “The African Rock Python who is close to our cycle track must have swallowed a small warthog or an impala calf! Should they score a large enough meal these protected reptiles only have to eat again after many months.”
“They sent pictures to our Facebook page and the snake ended up becoming quite a celebrity. On Tuesday last week, we went out on the cycle track on foot and managed to find the snake again. It looked to be quite a lot smaller than the pictures. At first we thought it could have been a young impala and a warthog that it had eaten,” said reserve manager Shona Lawson.
Reserve general manager Jennifer Fuller said: “The exact reasons for the snake’s death are not clear. It is apparent that several porcupine quills were lodged inside the digestive tract. It had fallen off the rocky ledge. We don’t know if it died beforehand, or whether the fall drove some of the quills into its digestive tract.
The cause of the python’s death was verified by an autopsy.
Most predators would have been scared off by the porcupine’s visual display of quills, but snakes rely on either their thermal or chemical senses, not vision, when they attack their prey. So, the python was unaware of the dangers of the porcupine’s quills until it was too late, reports the Mirror.
After cutting the python open, removing the porcupine, and performing an autopsy, the Lake Eland Game Reserve posted the following to its Facebook page: “Sadly, the African Rock Python that became an overnight sensation has been found dead. The 3.9m long Python was found to have ingested a 13.8kg Porcupine. Autopsy showed Porcupine quills lodged in the snake’s digestive tract.” As reported by