10/8/2005: Python vs Gator, both lose

[Undertoad]

Submitted by five different people, already posted in another IotD thread, and seen by just about everyone by now... but it's such an IotD that it has to be documented anyway.

The photo was released by the Everglades National Park, Florida. This is a Burmese python that attempted to swallow an alligator. Unfortunately it was just too much for the python, who then exploded. In the above shot, the "pieces" of python are the top section of the photo, while the section pointing down and to the right is the gator's hind end. They say the gator may have clawed at the inside of the snake while being digested.

Ew.

Apparently the snake's head is also missing!

Burmese pythons don't happen naturally in the Everglades, so the thinking now is that this was probably a pet who got abandoned once he became too much for the owner. Apparently this is such a problem that there were 150 pythons captured in the last two years. And apparently this is the fourth python/gator encounter they have documented.