14 DAY TRIAL // Pythons and alligators are both formidable predators. Most of the time, the two species mind their own business and stick to attacking whatever defenseless creatures come their way.
Every once in a while, however, pythons and alligators clash. Sometimes it's pythons that win such confrontations, other times it's alligators that deliver the fatal blow.
In case you were wondering what happens when a python kills an alligator, wonder no more. Long story short, it eats it. And then it digests it, turning it into a slimy mush.
The X-ray images below, understood to have been obtained by researchers with the University of Alabama, show exactly what happens inside the body of a python when it feasts on an alligator instead of, say, an antelope.
Immediately after the meal, the alligator's silhouette is clearly distinguishable inside the body of the python. About five days later, the alligator looks nothing like its former self.
Wildlife researchers explain that, because they have evolved to have highly flexible ligaments, tendons and muscles, pythons and other snakes can eat very large prey without even having to chew it.
In fact, it was towards the end of March that a group of men exploring a jungle came across a snake that had just eaten a fellow slithering creature about as big as itself.
When the men cut open the snake's swollen belly, its dead sibling kind of, sort of spilled out. Not at all surprisingly, footage documenting this reptile's meal went viral just hours after having been posted online.
