Six-metre python found dead with half of its fatal feed sticking out of it

RUSSELL thought he could smell something when he opened the front door. It wasn’t until he stepped out the next day that he was confronted with the remains of a massive python — and what killed it. WARNING: Graphic photos

RUSSELL Boserio had heard stories about giant snakes devouring wildlife in far north Queensland but he never expected to find just that practically on his doorstep.

The Sydney native also didn’t expect to find a dead six-metre python with half a male wallaby sticking out of its mouth only steps from his property border in Cairns.

It’s believed the python may have choked on its meal.

Mr Boserio, 64, said he opened the door about 10.30pm last Friday and could smell something, but didn’t check into it until Saturday when he was in the backyard poisoning some weeds.

“I found a large scrub python that had a full grown wallaby half way down its body, with the wallaby still sticking out of its mouth, up to the hip area,” he said.

“It looked like the python must have choked to death on the wallaby.

The retired public servant, who moved to Cairns with his wife in 2015 to be closer to their children and grandchildren, said he found the two dead animals only metres from his property line, which backs onto bushland in the Cairns suburb of Kanimbla.

The python had been eating a wallaby.

“I had heard stories about giant pythons eating wallabies, but now I’ve seen it for real. It could have easily come on the property,” he said.

“I’ve since seen a female wallaby and a young one in the same area, so it may have been the father that was taken.”

Mr Boserio said he suspected the animals had been there about a week but had only started to decompose in the heat that followed on from some rain.

“The build-up of stuff actually exploded around the mouth of the snake as it couldn’t decompose properly with the wallaby in its mouth,” he said.

He said he rang the Cairns City Council following the find, which sent workers to bury the animals.

The python and its meal.

The python’s remains. Pictures: Russell Bosario

Mr Boserio also said his wife, Carmen, was at the front of their home Saturday night when she saw two more large snakes slither across their Sergeant St driveway about 1am.

“They must have come down the vacant block or the greenways,” Mr Boserio said.

It has been a busy month for giant pythons in Queensland, with Townsville Veterinary Nurse, Trish Prendergast, expected to release a snake today that swallowed a tennis ball.

Miss Prendergast, 37, who is also a snake catcher, made international headlines recently when colleagues at the Townsville Veterinary Clinic filmed her massaging a tennis ball out of the carpet python’s stomach, ultimately saving its life.

She told The Courier-Mail today that she had dubbed the python Roger and planned to release him near where he was found in the suburb of Belgian Gardens.

On January 1 a three-metre scrub python was spotted swallowing a wallaby in a horse paddock in Kuranda, only weeks after a similar scene when a four-metre python was recorded on a Cairns golf course in mid-December.

This python was snapped eating a wallaby at Kuranda last month.

Pictures: Supplied

A company in Victoria has had a number of much smaller yet deadlier snake visitors this week.

Brenton Maher, 33, director of North Vic Engines in Cobram said some of his employees were moving engine parts about lunchtime on Wednesday when they came across a large red back spider about to attack a juvenile eastern brown snake that was caught in its web.

A short video of the venomous pair went viral after it was posted to the company’s Facebook page and had received almost 2.8 million views since it was first posted online late Wednesday by late Thursday.

However, many viewers quickly criticised the video, claiming they could see a hook attached to the snake’s mouth and accused the employees of purposely baiting the baby snake, especially as they had jokingly written that their “pet red back” had killed the snake.

Mr Maher said although it looked like a hook in the video, part of the cobweb was actually near the snake’s mouth.

“We’re an engine shop, we wouldn’t even have a fish hook in the place,” he said.

He also said no one was game to put their hands in the middle of two of Australia’s most venomous creatures to save the young reptile.

Two more juvenile eastern browns slithered through part of the workshop earlier Wednesday while another baby brown snake had become caught in cobweb not far from the first Thursday morning, according to Mr Maher.

A short clip of the second baby snake caught in a web was also posted to the North Vic Engines Facebook page, though at the time of filming, no spider had yet appeared.

“As long as we don’t find the mum under someone’s desk we’ll be right,” Mr Maher said.

He said a similar scene of a spider catching a young snake happened about the same time last year.

In January, a Vinifera, Victoria woman filmed a battle between a red back spider and a snake that was caught in its web in her garden shed.

Only days earlier, a woman from Kurrajong Heights, NSW had also posted a video online of a red back spider killing a red-belly black snake caught in its web outside her home.

The red backs defeated their venomous catches in all instances.