A Clue Concealed in the Snake’s Last Meal
As the investigators further conducted their observation, they began piecing together clues on what the snake might have eaten. The bulge’s shape told them it was the size of a whole considerable animal, swallowed whole. Indeed, the enormity of the prey is almost impossible to fathom, and the investigators hardly could imagine how the snake managed to swallow such an enormous prey.
The bulge became elliptical, tapering at one end, giving them an idea of the shape of the animal. The estimates ranged from a deer, curled up with its legs in the face, as it went down the snake’s gullet, to a wild boar-this was the commonest prey for the big snakes in the region. The more it watched, the clearer it became that no small meal had been taken; the snake had eaten something that would find it sufficient for weeks, if not months.
Every new detail filled the excitement and mystery of such an encounter. Workers believed they were opening a story inside the snake’s belly—the one regarding predator and prey and survival in nature. They were fascinated at the sheer scale of such an event to be occurring right before their eyes, reminding them of natural power and the fragile balance of life in the wild.
