Saturday 5 January 2008

Snake's feast

Is this a lucky carpet python or what? Would you consider it lucky since it caught the attention of audiences worldwide? Not many snakes can have such a worldwide claim to fame but this one in Australia did, recently.

Notice the bulge in its body? You can see it much clearer in the second picture. Inside are four golf balls. All because the snake was hungry. What happened was that the python had mistaken the golf balls for eggs. A family had placed the golf balls among their chickens because they wanted to encourage the hens to lay eggs. But the snake crept in and thought they were food.

The lumpy snake was caught and the family took it to the vet who x-rayed it. The vet, Michael Pyne, made an astute observation: "Of course, golf balls don't digest very well." He couldn't figure whether to squeeze the balls out from the snake's head or tail, so decided in the end to just cut it open.

Well, operate he did. The snake was given a clean bill of health and would be released back into the wild once it recovered. But do you think it will have learnt it lesson? I very much doubt so. But I wouldn't want to see it back on the operating table.

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