This would scare you: Photos of snakes that bit off more than they could chew

Large snakes can fit a lot of huge items in their bellies, but sometimes it takes its toll on their life. Even a creature as powerful as a python can occasionally bite off more than it bargained for.

They can fully digest large land animals such as antelopes, sheep, goat, crocodile, their own, even human. It might take a bit longer to swallow, but it’s possible. Luckily, this allows them to go many weeks without eating.

1. Python found dead after swallowing a 30lb porcupine.

A giant python was found lying dead next to a cycle track after swallowing a 13.8kg (30lb) porcupine, the spines of which punctured the inside of the snake.The python, nearly four meters (around 12 and a half feet) long, died after falling from a rocky ledge in the Lake Eland Game Reserve in South Africa. The fall is believed to have forced the quills to puncture the snake’s digestive tract (though the exact cause of its death is unknown).After the snake was reported to gamekeepers, they performed an autopsy on the animal to remove the porcupine from its innards and found the insides of the snake had been pierced by dozens of the animal’s sharps quills.

2. Python bursts after eating Gator.

Unfortunately for a 13-foot (4-meter) Burmese python in Florida’s Everglades National Park, eating the enemy seems to have caused the voracious reptile to bust a gut literally.Wildlife researchers with the South Florida Natural Resources Center found the dead, headless python in October 2005 after it apparently tried to digest a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) American alligator. The mostly intact dead gator was found sticking out of a hole in the midsection of the python, and wads of gator skin were found in the snake’s gastrointestinal tract.

3. Snake dies after failing to digest pig.

Julatten resident Neil McDougall was looking for mushrooms on his property when he discovered a dead 4.5m python. It had a very distended belly indicating it had eaten something quite large. An expert told Mr. McDougall the snake most probably died from a perforated gut.

4. The Python had recently consumed a 76-lb. adult female deer. The reptile was one of the largest ever found in South Florida.

5. Python eats a pregnant sheep.

In 2006, firefighters in the Malaysian village of Kampung Jabor were called in to remove the bloated snake 18ft long from a roadway. The reptile had swallowed an entire pregnant sheep and was too full to slither away and digest its supersize meal.