00:00When villagers in Nigeria spotted an enormous snake with a massively swollen belly,
00:05many of them believed they knew exactly what had happened.
00:08The snake appeared to have swallowed something huge,
00:11and in an area where livestock was kept,
00:13the frightening suspicion was that the animal inside could be a calf.
00:18Large snakes are capable of swallowing prey far bigger than most people expect.
00:22They don't chew their food.
00:24Instead, they seize an animal, constrict it, and slowly swallow it whole.
00:28After a large meal, the outline of the prey can sometimes remain visible inside the snake for hours or even
00:35days.
00:36So when residents saw the strange bulge stretching the snake's body,
00:40they feared it had been feeding on their livestock.
00:42The reptile was killed.
00:44But the villagers still wanted to know what was inside.
00:47As people gathered around, the swollen section of the snake was cut open.
00:51At first, everyone expected the remains of an animal to appear.
00:54Maybe fur, maybe bones, or perhaps the body of the calf they believed the snake had swallowed.
01:00But instead, they found something completely different.
01:03Eggs.
01:04Not one or two.
01:06Dozens of large eggs were packed tightly inside the snake's body.
01:10The discovery immediately changed the story.
01:13The huge bulge that had made the animal look as if it had just eaten an enormous meal
01:17wasn't caused by prey at all.
01:19The snake was a female carrying a large clutch of eggs.
01:23Reports about the incident quickly spread online,
01:26along with photographs showing the open snake and the eggs removed from its body.
01:30The exact species was not definitively confirmed in early reports.
01:34Although the animal was widely believed to be an African rock python,
01:39one of the largest snakes found in Africa.
01:40And if that identification was correct, the number of eggs was not unusual.
01:45Female African rock pythons can produce very large clutches.
01:49After laying, the mother normally coils around the eggs and remains close to them while they develop.
01:55But this snake never reached that point.
01:57What made the incident so striking was how easily the swollen belly was misunderstood.
02:02From the outside, the villagers saw a huge snake with an enormous mass inside it.
02:07Combined with the fear that a predator might be taking livestock,
02:11the explanation seemed obvious.
02:13But it wasn't.
02:14Instead of finding the remains of an animal,
02:16they discovered an entire generation of snakes that had not yet been laid.
02:21Some reports even claimed that the eggs were collected afterwards,
02:24since snake eggs are eaten in some communities.
02:27The images created a strong reaction online.
02:30Some people focused on the danger large pythons can pose to animals living nearby,
02:34while others saw the incident as an unnecessary killing caused by a mistaken assumption.
02:40Either way, the photographs made the same point in a way that was difficult to ignore.
02:44A swollen snake doesn't always mean a giant meal.
02:48Sometimes, what looks like evidence of a predator's latest victim
02:51can have a completely different explanation.
02:53And for the villagers who opened this snake expecting to find a calf,
02:57that explanation came as a shock.
02:59Because hidden inside its enormous belly wasn't one animal at all.
03:04It was dozens of eggs.
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