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01 May 2024

Centipede eats viper, from inside out

The picture as published in 'Ecologica Montenegrina' showing the centipede bursting out of the snake's stomach. (Pic courtesy: Ecologica Montenegrina)

Published
By Staff

The picture is not for those with weak stomachs and the report itself is as creepy as its protagonist.

However, if you are looking at the picture, then you may well be looking at the most famous centipede known to man.

Also famous now is the Ecologica Montenegrina a hithertho Montenegro college journal of science that published the find.

A viper is believed to have swallowed centipede alive. The centipede then fought back – and the paper published by Ljiljana Tomovic, a Serbian herpetologist, and called ‘Two fangs good, a hundred legs better’ – suggests the centipede ate its way out of the viper’s body.

Both creatures were found dead by a group of researchers who stumbled upon the grisly scene during a field study in Macedonia last year.

After a post-mortem, the scientists think it is possible that the centipede quite literally ate the snake from inside out.
It is not the first time that a snake has underestimated its prey.

In 2005, a four-metre Burmese python was found dead after attempting to digest a two-metre-long American alligator.