In what could be the first known case, a Burmese python was seen attacking and swallowing a reticulated python. Scientists say two of the world’s biggest snakes preying on one another has never been reported before. The unusual encounter happened in Bangladesh and saw the Burmese python eat a much bigger reticulated python.
The incident was reported in a research note published on August 20 in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.
“To the best of our knowledge, this observation represents the first documented predation of M. reticulatus by P. bivittatus,” the authors wrote in the paper.
The rare event happened in 2020, and images show a Burmese python (Python bivittatus) feasting on the reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus). The former ate the latter alive from the tail up. The snake took about two hours to completely devour the other python.
Study co-author Ashikur Rahman Shome, a wildlife ecologist at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, told Live Science, that it is not common to find the two pythons in the same place. “It was a really unusual situation to find two pythons in the same area,” he said.
A fight for territory?
Scientists reached the site upon learning about the presence of two pythons. They were shocked to see the 10-foot-long (3-metre) Burmese python coiled around the reticulated python’s tail.
The latter did not give up without a fight. It constricted the Burmese python to save its life but ultimately gave up. The Burmese python feasted on it for two hours.
Burmese pythons are normally a few feet smaller than the reticulated python. The former can grow up to 19 feet, while reticulated pythons can reach up to 25 feet. Shome said that in this case also, the latter was larger but the exact length could not be ascertained.
The tussle between the two pythons happened at the Akiz Wildlife Farm in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Division. The ranges of the two pythons overlap in this region.
They are normally known to feed on small mammals, lizards and birds. However, why they chose to enter a fight in which one ate the other up is not clear. Study authors believe that it was likely a fight for territory and this was probably one of the best options available to reign supreme.