Welcome to your worst nightmare with snake-eating snakes.
No one can be certain how two dead snakes became embedded together. One thing we can be certain about is that this is Australia and anything is possible.
Farm manager Geoff Mitchell from Griffith snapped this horrendous photo of two snakes either in the throes of passion or eating each other alive. The two snakes appear to have been run over by a vehicle, rendering them both deceased, before the photo was snapped.
This meant that there were more questions than answers, with the main ones being: Is the black snake eating its way out of the brown snake? And, what does that mean for life in general?
Mitchell said he was shocked at the terrifying sight. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing! It was incredible!" he told Mashable Australia via Facebook.
"I was driving along a dirt road next to a canal and saw a tangle of snake in the road. I stopped to have a look, grabbed my camera and took the photos," he said. "Both snakes were dead. It looks like the brown snake was eating the black snake. And somehow the black snake had 'punched' it's way out of the black snake."
Mitchell said he went back to retrieve it so he could get an expert's opinion, but by the time he returned it had gone. He thinks it may be the result of something more natural than a snake-eating snake, such as a a hawk or a raptor making a hole in the snake's side causing the black snake to burst out.
"I have thought about it quite a bit and think that the brown snake was eating the black snake when it was attacked by some bird of prey who made a hole in its side through, which the half swallowed snake was able to get out, but this resulted in the death of both snakes," he said.
Sydney Snake Catcher Rob Ambrose has another, more believable, theory: The brown snake was eating the black snake when the two were hit by a car.
"It's nothing unusual, though it may seem that for people who don't see it every day," he told the ABC. "Sometimes brown snakes predate on other snakes. I've actually witnessed it myself. But they don't eat their way out or anything –- they can't even chew.
"During the snake eating the other, it's had some sort of blunt force trauma from a car, or someone belted it. But from the hole, I'd say a car," he said. "Sometimes when roadkill gets run over, it bursts. When pressure is applied and they burst, stuff can sort of spill out like that. So the snake's burst out of the other snake's belly."
Even the experts at Australia Zoo were shocked when the photo was shared with them on Facebook. "Wow! This is certainly unusual and we have not seen this before," the moderator wrote, according to radio station 3AW.
"We can't imagine a black snake climbing into another snake but this entire situation is very strange. We would still suggest that the brown one was eating the black but we will never know for sure."
So the only thing we know for certain is Australia is a terrifying place.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
No one can be certain how two dead snakes became embedded together. One thing we can be certain about is that this is Australia and anything is possible.
Farm manager Geoff Mitchell from Griffith snapped this horrendous photo of two snakes either in the throes of passion or eating each other alive. The two snakes appear to have been run over by a vehicle, rendering them both deceased, before the photo was snapped.
This meant that there were more questions than answers, with the main ones being: Is the black snake eating its way out of the brown snake? And, what does that mean for life in general?
Mitchell said he was shocked at the terrifying sight. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing! It was incredible!" he told Mashable Australia via Facebook.
"I was driving along a dirt road next to a canal and saw a tangle of snake in the road. I stopped to have a look, grabbed my camera and took the photos," he said. "Both snakes were dead. It looks like the brown snake was eating the black snake. And somehow the black snake had 'punched' it's way out of the black snake."
Mitchell said he went back to retrieve it so he could get an expert's opinion, but by the time he returned it had gone. He thinks it may be the result of something more natural than a snake-eating snake, such as a a hawk or a raptor making a hole in the snake's side causing the black snake to burst out.
"I have thought about it quite a bit and think that the brown snake was eating the black snake when it was attacked by some bird of prey who made a hole in its side through, which the half swallowed snake was able to get out, but this resulted in the death of both snakes," he said.
Sydney Snake Catcher Rob Ambrose has another, more believable, theory: The brown snake was eating the black snake when the two were hit by a car.
"It's nothing unusual, though it may seem that for people who don't see it every day," he told the ABC. "Sometimes brown snakes predate on other snakes. I've actually witnessed it myself. But they don't eat their way out or anything –- they can't even chew.
"During the snake eating the other, it's had some sort of blunt force trauma from a car, or someone belted it. But from the hole, I'd say a car," he said. "Sometimes when roadkill gets run over, it bursts. When pressure is applied and they burst, stuff can sort of spill out like that. So the snake's burst out of the other snake's belly."
Even the experts at Australia Zoo were shocked when the photo was shared with them on Facebook. "Wow! This is certainly unusual and we have not seen this before," the moderator wrote, according to radio station 3AW.
"We can't imagine a black snake climbing into another snake but this entire situation is very strange. We would still suggest that the brown one was eating the black but we will never know for sure."
So the only thing we know for certain is Australia is a terrifying place.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
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