14 DAY TRIAL // A team of researchers working on the island of Golem Grad in Macedonia, also known as Snake Island, stumbled across a pretty gruesome and bizarre picture: they found a young nose-horned viper with a centipede’s head poking out of its abdomen.
As it would appear, the unfortunate snake picked the wrong centipede for its meal. The reptile apparently swallowed the centipede, which then tried to free itself by eating its way out of the snake's body. Both creatures were dead when they were found last year.
Herpetologists at the University of Belgrade who examined the duo think that the centipede literally ate the snake's body from the inside out, including its bones and organs, as the invertebrate was basically wearing its skin like a cloak.
“The entire volume of its body was occupied by the centipede,” the scientists wrote in a report after performing a dissection.
The unusual finding has stunned the group of researchers who were tagging reptiles in the area.
“In general, this invertebrate is extremely tough: It is very hard to kill a full-grown Scolopendra (personal observation),” they said about the centipede. “Therefore, we cannot dismiss the possibility that the snake had swallowed the centipede alive, and that, paradoxically, the prey has eaten its way through the snake, almost reaching its freedom.”
According to Live Science, the nose-horned viper was a young female that measured about 7.9 inches (20.3 cm), while the centipede was 6 inches long (15.4 cm), but was heavier than the snake (4.8 vs. 4.2 grams, or 0.17 vs. 0.14 ounces).