Florida researchers tracking snakes in the Everglades were recently treated to quite an "impressive feat": a female Burmese python devouring a 77-pound white-tailed deer, whole. And they've released the footage of when they made their discovery, showing the python's mouth stretched to 93% of its maximum gape, per Live Science, citing their research published in the Reptiles & Amphibians journal. "These are things you don't see every day," one observer whispers in the video, showing the researchers hovering a few yards back from the python, with part of the unmoving deer sticking out of the snake's wide-open mouth.
"It felt like we were literally catching the serial killer in the act, and it was intense to observe [in] real time," wildlife biologist Ian Bartoszek of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida tells Live Science. "This was the most intense and impressive sight we have observed in 12 years of tracking pythons in southwestern Florida." The outlet notes that the python was about 15 feet along and weighed around 115 pounds, while the deer was 76.9 pounds—67% of the snake's mass.
The invasive Burmese python was first spotted in the Everglades in the late '70s and has since gone to town on Florida's resident wildlife, with no natural predators to take it down. Experts believe there are now hundreds of thousands of them in the state. The researchers weren't surprised this particular snake scarfed down a deer for dinner: One local tells CBS that he's seen pythons eat deer, as well as rabbits and large birds like herons and turkey vultures. But scientists previously thought the maximum mouth gape for a Burmese python was 8.6 inches—a figure that's now been upgraded to 10.2 inches. (More Burmese python stories.)
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