Viral video shows animals hitching ride on snake, experts weigh in

Eastern browns are known to prey on mice and frogs - but incredible footage during Queensland’s wild floods captured a softer side to the deadly snake.

Two shivering mice and a green frog have been spotted clinging to safety off an eastern brown snake during Queensland’s wild floods.

Incredible footage showed the deadly snake allowing the animals to hang off its body in a waterlogged rainwater tank.

The clip, which was shared to TikTok, showed animal rescuers using a metal pole in a bid to save other frogs struggling to stay afloat in the tank.

“They got them all out alive! And the snake too!,” the user wrote.

Social media users were stunned by the snake’s behaviour, with some noting eastern browns almost exclusively eat mice, rats and frogs to survive.

“When times get tough Aussie’s help each other out,” joked one woman.

“He’s taking his role as pool noodle very seriously,” added another.

Despite the footage shocking Aussies, snake catchers said the behaviour wasn’t surprising.

“Most animals will basically cling to whatever they can find, it’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Janne Torkkola, snake catcher at Snakeout Brisbane, told news.com.au.

“I don’t think [the snake] is too concerned by [the animals on it] – the animals are a small percentage of its body weight and it is just trying to float and survive like the rest of them.”

Most animals will basically cling to whatever they can find, says expert. Picture: Supplied

Bryan Robinson, snake catcher at Snake Catchers Brisbane, agreed.

“If you have animals that are all constrained to a body of water and they’ve got no room for high ground, then I would imagine they’d take to the first thing, it’s like a drowning man clutching at straws.

“There are situations where I’ve been called out in sewage pits and those sorts of things on regular occurrence, mice and eastern browns occupying the same space.”

When asked whether the snake would likely eat its passengers, he said, “[eastern brown snakes] do eat mice, they are known to occasionally predate on frogs, but in a situation like that, all those animals are in a state of stress: they’re contained, they’re cold, they’re not at optimum temperature, it’s certainly not a normal predatory situation.”

The mice and frog weren’t the only ones looking for dry ground as torrential rain soaked south-eastern Queensland.

A man evacuates his dog as he wades through a flooded street in the city of Paddington in suburban Brisbane on February 28, 2022. (Photo by Patrick HAMILTON / AFP)

Aimee O’Hara rescues her dog. Picture: Annette Dew

Carrara cows staying dry in the flood.

A cow seeks high dry ground after it was swamped by flood water from torrential rain. NCA NewsWire / Scott Powick