It depends on how squeamish you are as to whether or not you really want to watch a reticulated python swallowing an entire deer in one piece. For some it might be a stomach-churning event, but for others it’s no doubt very interesting. To think that something that’s a lot longer but no wider than the deer could take something that big into its mouth and not suffocate is kind of hard to believe at first. But while it is possible since evolution has made it this way, the process still takes hours to accomplish as the heart and liver of the snake expand in order to begin the process of dissolving the snake’s prey will still functioning normally so that the snake can move off when necessary.
That is an interesting quirk of nature that any snake would be able to do this. It’s easy to think that they couldn’t possibly live on smaller prey alone since the smaller prey seem to get away quite often due to their smaller size that presents less of a target. Plus it seems that the smaller the prey the harder it is for the snake to trap them in its coils. But it also seems that the python might be more vulnerable in this state to other predators as it could be slower and much less inclined to fight. That leaves the question as to whether it takes to the water after a meal or if it sits around for a bit waiting for its food to digest. The former would seem like the better idea unless the added weight would send it sinking to the bottom of whatever body of water it entered, while the latter would definitely leave it in a much more dangerous position. It’s interesting to think about quite honestly, though you can’t ignore the grisly but necessary nature of it all.
Snakes get a very bad reputation when it comes to people and how they’re perceived. After all they are one of the most reviled creatures when it comes to certain religions and they do pose a very serious threat in the wild. But in many ways snakes are as needed as any other creature since they do provide what is known as natural pest control. In the case of the deer you could argue that such animals are not necessarily pests, but snakes still manage to serve a purpose as another balance in nature that is hard to ignore. Like many other predators they contribute to the thinning of herds in a way and the balance that is kept by the top predators of the food chain. They are part of that chain as well and in many cases are not at the top. Snakes are just as susceptible to being hunted as any other creature is, though larger snakes seem to have less enemies than the smaller species.
Still it’s not entirely fair to fault snakes just because of how they look and how they feed. They might look deadly and be deadly but they do serve a very needed purpose.
