A pair of snake catchers in Australia got a bit of a surprise Monday when they were called to a home to relieve the owners of a deadly visitor.
Sally and Norman Hill, who operate N&S Snake Catcher in the Ipswich, Brisbane and Logan areas, were stunned to find not one, but two snakes at the house in the Ipswich suburb of Goodna. What made the find surprising was the fact that one of the snakes was eating the other.
Video that they shot shows the venomous eastern brown snake slowly swallowing the other snake, a carpet python.
"We've never seen something like this before," Sally Hill told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "It's very rare any snake catcher gets an opportunity to witness something like this."
Hill said that they stayed at the home for a few hours Monday to allow the snake to finish the meal.
"We just put him into the bag," she told ABC. "If you disturb them too much, they'll regurgitate their meal and it's just a waste."
According to Live Science, the eastern brown snake is the second-most venomous land snake in the world. Comfortable in urban areas, it is responsible for most of the recorded snake bites in Australia each year.
Their bite can cause dizziness, convulsions, uncontrollable bleeding, kidney failure, heart failure, paralysis and death. Though it can be fatal if medical help is not received in time, fatalities are rare.
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