Animals That Survived Being Swallowed by Snakes

Chewing food into little pieces may be helpful for human digestion, but snakes prefer to ingest their meals in one gulp. Unlike human jaws, snake jaws are not connected to their skulls. This allows them to open their mouths incredibly wide, swallowing their prey without bothering with chewing. Often, they don’t even wait for their meal to die before gobbling them down and letting their stomachs finish the job.

This unique eating process gives some creatures a second chance at survival. Despite all odds, a select few animals manage to survive. They claw their way out of the belly of the beast or are regurgitated back to freedom. Even if they don’t survive, they sometimes kill their snake attacker in the process. It’s a rare, remarkable feat, so let’s explore five instances of prey overcoming the stomachs of their serpentine predators.

Frogs

An anecdote published over a century ago in Nature illustrates what happens when a snake fails to digest a frog. According to the report, a 24-inch grass snake had not been fed in several weeks. Once it was given a full-grown frog, it swallowed the amphibian in one fell swoop. About ninety minutes later, the snake was handled and played with. This caused the lump in its body to move back up towards its head. Seconds later, the snake regurgitated, and the frog appeared, discolored but unharmed. Unfortunately for the frog, it only tasted freedom for a few minutes before the snake ate it again, this time successfully.

Centipedes

Even arthropods, such as centipedes, have a fighting chance. A story published in the Daily Mail on April 17, 2014, details the fight to the death between a Megarian banded centipede and a young nose-horned viper. During a field study on Golem Grad (snake island) near Macedonia, researchers discovered a viper with its stomach ruptured by a centipede. Neither creature survived, but the centipede made a final effort by eating its way out of the viper’s stomach. The centipede was actually heavier than the viper, which may explain why the viper couldn’t digest it.

Alligators

Alligators seem far too large to be eaten whole, but larger snakes like pythons sometimes attempt it. This, however, does not always work out in the snake’s favor. It’s a high-risk, high-reward situation. A famous case from 2005 involved a 13-foot-long Burmese python found with its stomach ruptured after swallowing a six-foot alligator. In December 2023, a similar incident occurred in the Florida Everglades. This time, a Burmese python and alligator both exploded after trying to consume each other.

Lizards

Although confirmed cases of lizards surviving a snake’s digestion are rare, some lizards have managed to escape before it’s too late. A photo posted on Reddit nine years ago and also shared by outdoor-travel author Bryan Snyder shows an alligator lizard after it crawled its way back up a Kingsnake’s gullet. While the user and Snyder claim the lizard managed to escape, there is no independent follow-up or photographic confirmation of its survival. Regardless of the outcome, this alligator lizard put up a fight and got farther than most.

Snakes

Serpents are known to eat small vermin and rodents. Some, however, will even eat other snakes. A video shot in Newton, Texas, on May 28, 2017, shows a tiny snake being regurgitated from a bigger snake’s mouth. An interview with a wildlife biologist in the Washington Post explored the veracity of the video. The biologist didn’t think the video was doctored. Instead, he suggested that prey fighting for survival inside snakes, whether frogs or smaller snakes, is more common than people might think.