The extraordinary moment a three-metre long python feasted on a large white cockatoo has been captured in Far North Queensland.
Cairns local Gary Montagner snapped the snake hanging from guttering of his house in Mooroobool as it widened its jaw in order to slowly digest the bird.
‘Nature’s circle of life caught on camera!’ posted Montagner, who added that nearby squawking cockatoos that can be heard in the background of the video were ‘distressed’ and remained in the trees, too scared to venture near the reptile.
‘The meat’s a bit feathery’: the python was captured mid-meal in a suburb of Cairns
Certain species of python in Far North Queensland have been known to eat an entire wallaby
It took the python around two hours to fully consume the hapless white cockatoo
The python’s upper neck can be seen bulging as it begins to devours what appears to be a sulphur-crested cockatoo, a process which Montagner said took two hours.
‘Then they wait by the bird feeder,’ he continued.
‘The cockies usually tell each other if there is a python in the area.
‘The biggest python I would have seen around my place was six or seven metres long.’
Certain species of python have been known to eat animals the size of wallabies in this part of Australia.
The three-metre long python approaches the end of its two-hour digestion of the large bird
The most common in the Cairns region is the Amethystine python, a non-venomous variety that can grow to a size of between 5 and 8.5 metres and lives on birds and small mammals.
‘A neighbour of ours had her cat taken by a python,’ said Montanger. ‘We have small dogs but the snakes don’t seem to go for the dogs so much.’
This particular specimen demonstrates perfect python killing technique – coiling around their prey and squeezing until suffocation occurs, a process known as constriction.
‘We like animals,’ said Montagner. ‘We don’t want [the python] killed or removed, it’s just part of nature up here.’