Confronting footage has surfaced showing the moment an enormous snake gave a possum a brutal “kiss of death” before dropping the animal’s lifeless body to the ground.
And in a strange twist, a wrangler believes the snake likely left the marsupial lying on the ground dead due to the fact its killing process had been “disturbed” by the accidental drop.
The giant coastal carpet python was filmed hanging from a veranda roof with the body of a brushtail possum in its mouth.
As the snake attempted to pull the heavy marsupial up to the roof by coiling it in its body, it suddenly lost grip and the limp fluffy creature fell to the pavement below.
Australian snake catcher Daniel Busstra, based on the Sunshine Coast, suspected the python had intended to pull the possum up to the rafters but accidentally dropped it.
“The possum would have been sleeping up in the rafters and the python would have taken advantage of it,” Dan told news.com.au, before offering his opinion on how the ordeal likely played out.
“The python would have picked up the scent, gone up to the rafters, striked at it, wrapped it up and strangled it, and then while it was strangling it, it would have lost its balance,” he said.
Snakes of that size had between 90 to 100 teeth and would typically have no issue holding onto a possum of that stature, Dan added.
“When they get a bite, if it’s a good bite, normally they hold on,” he said.
The video showed the python was trying to pull the possum back up, but due to it being “pretty heavy” and the python losing balance, its effort was ultimately wasted.
“It was definitely trying to pull it back up into the rafters to wrap it back up again,” he said, revealing it was unlikely the snake would have pursued the possum after it fell.
“I’m assuming the snake would have just left it there.”
Coastal carpet pythons regularly snack on brushtail possums, he said, describing the one in the video as “average” in size compared to the whoppers he has encountered.
Dan added a python of that size would generally have no problem holding onto a possum, but it seemed the snake had exerted itself too much and was only holding onto the rafter by “the tip of its tail”.
“It really had to put in a good effort to get it back up again. If it had a good grip or was wrapped around the rafters mid-body, it would have been able to do it,” he said.
“The python just couldn’t do it anymore, he had to let it go.”
He had heard from snake behavioral experts that pythons generally wouldn’t eat an animal it killed after the process had been disturbed, leading him to believe the python probably left the possum on the ground.
Coastal carpet pythons mostly live on Queensland, Australia’s coastline, Dan said, and generally don’t cause too much disturbance to humans.
He added that while the video might be confronting to some, it showed a natural part of a “healthy ecosystem”.
“I love nature and nature can be cruel at times but it is a very important part of keeping a healthy ecosystem,” he said.
“The snake’s gotta eat and they all work with each other in a sense. As much as people don’t like to see it, it’s gotta happen.”
ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3R7kGpma3Ffo7K4v46woKWcXau2pbHOZqqhp6eoerHF06Gmp2WYlruotc2gZJ%2Bqn6J6s63FrZyrq12lwq24yKeeZqifqMC2uYyup2aaqWK2tb%2BMp5yco18%3D