A viper has been found dead in Macedonia with the body of a centipede rupturing through its body. Investigators believe the centipede ate its way the snake in a desperate attempt to survive after being eaten.
Ljiljana Tomović, a herpetologist at the University of Belgrade, was tagging reptiles on Golem Grad Island in Lake Prespa when the discovery was made. The odd pair were found after Dragan Arsovski, a researcher on the trip, turned a stone over, revealing the grisly discovery.
"Nose-horned vipers usually feed on small mammals, lizards, other snakes, amphibians and birds... On Golem Grad Island, adult vipers feed on lizards, dice snakes, and small rabbits, while juveniles consume lizards and S. cingulata [the centipede found in the discovery]," researchers wrote [pdf] in a report published in the journal Ecologica Montenegrina.
Golem Grad is populated by large numbers of slithering reptiles, including vipers and dice snakes. The island stretches over 44 acres and has the nickname of "Snake Island."
Vipera ammodytes often preys on animals larger than itself. In this case, an eight-inch long female nose-horned viper tried to prey on a centipede measuring six inches in length. The centipede weighed more than the snake, however, weighing its opponent by 0.03 ounces.
Examination of the viper revealed all the inner organs of the snake were missing. This could suggest the centipede ate the snake from the inside out, before chewing its way through the snake's body and dying.
"[W]e found that only the snake's body wall remained - the entire volume of its body was occupied by the centipede), which led us to suppose that the prey caused chemical or mechanical damage to the predator's digestive organs," researchers wrote in the article accompanying the examination of the accidental discovery.
Tomovic's report was titled "Two fangs good, a hundred legs better." The species of centipede involved in the deadly contest is tough to kill, says authors of the study. Researchers believe the snake may have been unable to kill its prey, and attempted to eat the centipede while it was still alive.
"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," Tomović wrote in the report.
This was not the first snake to hunt prey that proved to be deadly. In 2005, a Burmese python in Florida swallowed an alligator half its size and the alligator chewed its way through the body of the giant snake.
