Have you just eaten? If so, proceed with caution. One snake may never need to eat again after eating a snake even larger than itself in Bangladesh. In this battle of python vs. python, the Burmese python won, and scientists say their observation of a Burmese python eating a reticulated python is a first of its kind.
Last week, researchers published their findings in the journal Reptiles & Amphibians. The battle took place in October 2020 at the Akiz Wildlife Farm in Bangladesh’s Bandarban District. Researchers say a 10-foot Burmese python (P. bivittatus) had captured a reticulated python (M. reticulatus) by the tail, constricted it, and was in the process of swallowing it tail first.
The reticulated python was larger than the Burmese python, but size isn’t everything in the animal kingdom. Snakes swallow their prey whole, and swallowing a fellow python that’s 10+ feet long took this voracious Burmese python two whole hours.
Imagine being slowly eaten alive, tail first, for two hours.
“To the best of our knowledge, this observation represents the first documented predation of M. reticulatus by P. bivittatus,” the researchers say.
Image seeing a python vs. python battle. Would you expect the smaller snake to win?