Cow Spotted Eating Snake in Australia

By Tim Binnall

A motorist cruising down a remote highway in Australia could not believe his eyes when he looked over at the side of the road and spotted a cow munching on a snake. Andrew Gertz reportedly first thought that the animal was chewing on a bone until he got closer to the creature and realized "it was a sand python hanging out of its mouth."

The bovine's bizarre meal was so bewildering to the man that he actually stopped his car to take some pictures of the odd scene. How the cow wound up with a snake in its mouth is uncertain, though Gertz speculated that perhaps some kind of unexpected altercation occurred between the two animals which ultimately led to the non-venomous creature "latched onto its tongue."

Although a seasoned cattle rancher in Australia conceded that he's never seen such a thing before, Angus Emmott indicated that livestock sometimes scavenge dead animals in order to acquire proteins they may be lacking. In the case of this cow in particular, it either got the resources it needed or didn't have a taste for snake as it Gertz says that it dropped the dead reptile shortly after his unusual sighting.