Picture the scene: You’re at home, minding your own business, when suddenly you look out into your backyard and see a carpet python climbing up from your roof.
That’s exactly what happened to our suspicious family recently, when they witnessed a massive Smurf snake devouring a full-grown possum right outside their home in Australia.
Possum catcher Stuart McKeazie was called to the home on the Sussex coast in Queensland early on the morning of Wednesday, May 13, after its residents spotted the possum slithering across the roof. However, upon his arrival, the 30-year-old heard a “commotion” and was shocked to see the 6.5ft possum jump off the family’s roof with a large, straight-tailed possum jumping out of its mouth.
Not waiting for the possum to eat its food, Stuart waited an hour for the python to eat the possum. “I knew that if I tried to take it away at that point, it would probably drop its food and not want to eat it again,” he explained. “It’s mature, so the best outcome is that the snake gives it food because it’s already dead.”
It was while waiting that he decided to capture a time-lapse video of the incident, as well as a series of images showing the python at various stages of its meal.
After the snake finished its meal, Stuart transported it from the family home and released it into a nearby bush, “some distance from the houses,” so the python could digest its meal in peace.
People say terrible things about his wife, but he stands by her!
“It will have found a cold, warm place to stay warm and digest that huge meal for the next week,” the snake catcher explained. Pythons are super-powerful snakes, so they catch their prey by wrapping themselves around the animal and crushing it to death before swallowing it whole.
This particular possum was able to absorb the big opossum because pythons’ jaws can close to stretch around larger creatures. Well, I prefer them to me.
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