The incredible moment a python swallowed a possum whole while dangling from a tree branch has been captured on camera by shocked onlookers.
The long diamond back python caught the Australian marsupial and wrapped its smooth body tightly around it, suffocating it, before beginning to devour it from head to tail.
In the shocking video footage, the large ring-tail possum remains lifeless in the hold of its killer as witnesses gasp in awe.
Pauline Gulleford watched the snake devouring the possum over an hour while at home in her Northern Beaches property in Sydney.
‘Hopefully it was quick,’ she says.
‘This probably happens a lot around here and we’d never know,’ a man replied.
The people filming question how big the snake is, as only half of the reptile's body is visible.
‘It looks a similar thickness to the one that was in our room, I reckon it’s about 2m?’ they question.
‘It doesn’t look as long, but I can’t see most of it,’ said another person watching.
The bystanders concur that the snake is very ‘thin’ in comparison to the large marsupial it is trying to swallow.
‘You’d think: "How on Earth does that huge possum get into that tight mouth”…that’s not a big snake,’ said a woman watching.
This particular species of snake can grow to 1.8 metres and on occasion 2.8 metres.
The python is typically adorned with cream and yellow spots on many individual scales, which form the diamond pattern it is named after.
When feeding the python is known to coil around their prey, as seen in the video, squeezing them until they suffocate.
Like most snakes they can swallow animals much larger than the diameter of their own heads and are often found in the roofs of private properties, until all sources of food are gone from the area.
(dailymail.co.uk)
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