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What bechance when a python eats a hedgehog ? Hint : It ’s not pretty . A hungry snake in South Africa just found this out the voiceless way when it ate a hedgehog for supper and pop off less than a week later . ( All look-alike courtesy of Lake Eland Game Reserve ) [ Read the full python versus porcupine tarradiddle ]
Stuffed snake
On June 14 , a cyclist equitation along one of the mint bike trails at the Lake Eland Game Reserve in KwaZulu - Natal , South Africa , fleck this engorged snake in the grass .
Snack flack
No one lie with at first what the Hydra had eaten ; just that it must have been something pretty large . Park Ranger suspect the python feasted on a smallwarthogor a baby Aepyceros melampus .
Porcupine ’s revenge
Less than a hebdomad afterwards , on Saturday , June 20 , park commando feel the python beat near the bike trail . When they rationalise it open , they found a 30 - British pound ( 13.8 kilo ) porcupine .
Bad decisions
Believe it or not , pythons and other Snake do sometimes eat porcupines . However , many snakes terminate up regretting their selection of snack . A bailiwick published in 2003 in the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetologyfound that a hedgehog ’s flight feather can thrust all the way through a hungry Snake River ’s body .
More than he could manducate
Pythons in the Lake Eland Game Reserve have been spotted consuming even larger prey than a porcupine . The owner of the military reserve , Eric Dunstone , once saw a python take back an grownup oribi antelope whole , according to Jennifer Fuller , the reserve ’s oecumenical manager . Oribi Pearl Sydenstricker Buck can weigh well-nigh 50 pounds ( 22.7 kg ) . In this case , though , it in all probability was n’t the size of the porcupine that damage the snake .
Snake autopsy
It still is n’t decipherable if this python ’s spiky meal was actually responsible for its dying , Fuller told Live Science . ranger find the serpent underneath a rocky ledge , where it had apparently fall . On impact , the flight feather inside its engorged stomach may have pierce the python ’s digestive tract , which could have obliterate it .
Empty cuticle
Texas Ranger at the reserve stripped off the python ’s pelt after removing the hedgehog from its digestive track .
Long way down
Rangers also accept measurements of the Hydra ’s massive body , which valuate 12.8 feet ( 3.9 meter ) long . The snake ’s head feature a three-fold set of depleted jaw that move independently of one another , allowing the animal to unfold widely to swallow large prey .
