Scientists captured footage of a Burmese python swallowing a full-grown deer in Florida — proving these invasive predators can consume larger prey than previously thought.
Biologists were stunned when they witnessed a Burmese python in southern Florida swallowing a 77-pound white-tailed deer in a first-of-its-kind discovery.
According to Live Science, the female Burmese python measured 14.8 feet long and weighed 115 pounds.
It was discovered feasting on a white-tailed deer that weighed 76.9 pounds — which is almost 67% of the snake’s mass.
Moreover, to swallow the deer, the snake’s mouth stretched so wide it reached 93% of its maximum gape.
The shocking photos and video were released as a part of a study published in the journal Reptiles & Amphibians.
‘As Real and Primal as it Gets’
The chilling discovery was made by researchers Ian Bartoszek and Ian Easterling, who run a python research and removal program for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida — a nonprofit environmental group that aims to understand the full impact these invasive snakes are having on native wildlife.
A male python called Ronin, fitted with a tracking device, led the researchers to the female snake.
However, according to Outdoor Life, when Bartoszek and Easterling arrived at the location, what they saw next was the most intense thing they had ever witnessed in the field.
They arrived to see that the female Burmese python had already half-ingested a fully-grown deer.
It took another 30 minutes for the snake to get the back half of the deer’s body into its gullet to fully swallow the meal.
“We see this large female python, and she’s about halfway through swallowing a full-sized whitetail deer,” Bartoszek tells Outdoor Life.
“Once it realized we weren’t a threat, [the snake] proceeded to finish its meal. And it’s hard to describe unless you’ve seen it with your own eyeballs, but this was as real and primal as it gets.
“We watched it engulf this animal all the way down to the tips of its hooves and swallow it whole.”
The footage and photographs are remarkable given that no Florida-based scientist had ever recorded a python swallowing a full-sized whitetail deer. The encounter proves that larger snakes can graduate to very large prey.
Before the sighting, Bartoszek and Easterling always suspected that this kind of predation was happening on a wide scale in South Florida.
“This just reinforces what we know,” Bartoszek adds. “And if anybody’s on the fence about what these animals are doing in South Florida, they are clearly eating their way through the food web of the Everglades. And that includes whitetail deer.”
Image credits: All photos by Ian Bartoszek / Conservancy of Southwest Florida.