Shocking! 14-Foot Python Caught with 3 Deer in Its Stomach (Photos)

Posted by Thandiubani on Mon 05th Dec, 2016 - tori.ng

A deadly and ravenous Burmese python measuring 14-foot long has been captured only to discover it devoured three deer.

The 14-foot Burmese python was caught with three whole deer in its guts (Photo credit: Boback, S.M. et al. BioInvasions Records. 2016)

A new study has revealed how a ravenous 14-foot Burmese python was caught with three whole deer - one doe and two fawns - in its gut.

According to LiveScience, the gustatory feat sets a record: It's the first invasive Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) caught with three deer in its gut, said study co-lead author Scott Boback, an associate professor of biology at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

The report revealed that the python might have probably attacked and ate the deer at different times over a 90-day period, Boback said. That time span may seem long, but it's actually quite surprising that a snake would eat three enormous meals in a relatively short window, Boback told Live Science.

"If a python is capable of eating three deer in three months," what else are they eating that we don't know about, he asked. "We don't even know how many of them are out there [in the Everglades]."

It's unclear how the python attacked the deer, but the snake may have hid in the water, waiting for the deer to stop for a drink. That would have left the deer within striking distance of the snake, Boback said.

After sifting through the snake poop, the researchers found 12 white-tailed deer hooves and 10 dewclaws — the upper part of the deer's toes. The hooves are organized by individual, with the adult on the left side, the large fawn in the middle and the small fawn on the right.

Credit: Bob Richards/Moon Express

The 15.6-foot-long (4.8 m) female snake was almost done digesting its three massive meals when officials caught and euthanized it on June 3, 2013. A necropsy, or animal autopsy, revealed an empty stomach but intestines packed with poop.

The fecal matter was immense: more than 14 lbs. (6.5 kilograms), or 13 percent of the snake's body mass, Boback said. Study co-researchers Teresa Hsu and Suzanne Peurach, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, sieved through the excrement and found mats of fur and several undigested hooves, bones and teeth, indicating that the python had eaten white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) — and not just one, Boback said.

It's no surprise that the fur, hooves and teeth were undigested, as pythons can't break down keratin or enamel, Boback said. However, they can digest bone, which would explain why the researchers found only fragments of bone in the dung, he said.