In Indonesia, a mouse appeared to be crying out for help when it was suffocated by a 3-foot-long python before being eaten whole, arms outstretched and seal open. Dzul Dzulfikri, a 48-year-old Indonesian reptile owner, took the photographs earlier this year while feeding his pet ʋiʋa rat. Dzulfikri put the mouse in the python’s cage and then grabbed his camera as the predator lunged at its prey, wrapping its tail around it and crushing it to death over a five-minute period.
While pythons can be trained to eat frozen mice, most prefer to eat live ones like themselves, which is why Dzufikri fed his pet live food. “While I was ecstatic to have these photographs, I was horrified by the mouse as it struggled in its final moments,” he said. During a feeding session earlier this year, Indonesian python owner Dzul Dzulfikri captured this image of a mouse appearing to cry out for help as his pet snake strangled it to death.
Dzufikri said he put the ʋiʋo mouse in his python’s cage and then grabbed his camera to record the seconds the snake struck and clamped down on its spike to death. The python consumed the mouse entirely afterward. By unhinging their jaws, most snakes can finish their meal in one sitting and won’t need to eat for weeks, if not months. While captive pythons can be trained to eat frozen mice, their natural diet consists of fresh chickens, so even if they are kept as pets, they will need to be given young chickens.