We’ve all heard of the ᴘʀᴇᴅᴀᴛᴏʀ turning into the ᴘʀᴇʏ, but perhaps not in this way. A fascinating photograph of two d.e.a.d snakes intertwined, one brown and one black, has emerged from Griffith in the Australian state of New South Wales.
A deeper look, though, reveals a picture that is less from clear-cut, generating issues that remain unaddressed. Is it possible that the brown snake ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀed the black snake? Is it possible that the black snake has ʙɪᴛᴛᴇɴ its way out? Is that even conceivable?
Geoff Mitchell, a passer-by who took the unusual shot after noticing the d.e.a.d snakes on a roadside, is unsure what happened here. “I spotted a tangle of snakes and got up to look, grabbed my camera, and shot a photo,” he told 3AW radio in Australia. “I had to do some research since I had given it a lot of consideration. Brown snakes appear to consume black snakes on a regular basis, but I’ve never witnessed one snake punch a hole through another.”
He thought the snakes had been struck by a car while the brown reptile was consuming the black one. “During the snake consuming the other, it received some kind of blunt force ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇ from a car or was belted. But, judging by the size of the hole, I’d guess a car “He stated. “When roadk.i.l.l is run over, it might rupture. When pressure is applied to them and they rupture, things might stream out like that. As a result, the snake ʙʀᴏᴋᴇ out of the other snake’s gut.”
Geoff Mitchell took the shot of the snakes, which he described as “absolutely insane.” “I was going around one of the canal roads when I spotted this tangle of snakes and stepped out to look and grabbed my camera,” he told Macquarie Radio, adding that both snakes were .d.e.a.d. He thinks the black snake “would have had to be assisted out” of the brown snake. “Perhaps a raptor, kite, or hawk tried to take a bite, and the other one managed to release itself,” he speculated. “I’ve tried to research it on the internet, it seems quite common for brown snakes to eat black snakes, but I’ve seen none where one snake has punched a hole through the other”.