A man captured the moment a snake regurgitated another snake – which managed to survive – as he left his mother’s home in Newton, Texas, on Sunday.
Christopher Reynolds said he and his wife first came across the snake on the side of the road, assuming it was dead. Little did they know, it was just lying still as it tried to digest another smaller snake it had swallowed.
Bob Murphy, a University of Toronto professor and the senior curator of herpetology at the Royal Ontario Museum, said the snake was likely feeling disturbed and wanted to get away – something it can’t do if it’s digesting its food.
“They get nervous, sometimes, when they’re feeding. So if it’s a wild snake, it could be that it simply can’t get away as fast with a full stomach as it can if it’s empty,” said Murphy.
He said it’s not uncommon for researchers to come across this sort of behaviour in the field if they are trying to capture the reptile.
“If it’s got a big bulge in it, then you can expect there’s a pretty good chance that it’s going to regurgitate,” he said.
As for how the prey survived the incident, Murphy explained that snakes can survive without oxygen for much longer than mammals can.
In the video, Reynolds can be heard saying, “That is that other snake’s super, ultra, lottery-lucky day.”
Murphy said the “other snake” (the prey) looks like a southern black racer and the predator snake is a Texas indigo.
“Both are diurnal (active in the daytime), which explains the attempted feeding,” he said.
Indigos are known to eat other snakes, including rattlesnakes, according to Murphy. He said they will eat mammals, birds, reptiles and eggs as well.