Why was a cow seen chewing on a python’s head in remote Australia? Experts have ideas
A bizarre incident that most people would consider unlikely if not impossible was photographed recently in the Australian wilderness: A grazing cow chewing on a large python.
Cows are herbivores and not known for eating snakes, no matter what continent you’re on.
The photos, which began appearing on Facebook on Oct. 23, are attributed to Andrew Gertz, a “refrigeration mechanic” who told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) he spotted the chewing cow while driving “on the deserted Sandover Highway ... in the Northern Territory.”
Gertz said cows eating snakes strikes him as unlikely, too, and he wondered if “the cow might have stepped on or disturbed the snake that then ‘latched onto its tongue’,” ABC Perth reported Wednesday.
His photos have become a subject of much debate on social media, with some people suggesting the cow just appears to have a snake in its mouth, based on the camera angle.
“Only in 2020 you would see a cow eating a black headed python in Camooweal, Australia,” Back To Bush Reptile Relocations posted on its Facebook page.
“It would have been playing with it, not eating it. Cows are very curious creatures and some very playful,” Amy Sofoulis wrote on the ABC Perth Facebook page.
“You got it wrong: The snake was eating the cow. From the inside,” Tammi Doyle added.
So what was really going on?
RaynerAg, a consulting company for cattle and sheep ranchers, says cows are not above eating snakes if they are suffering from a mineral deficiency. However, the snake was likely already dead, the company said in an Oct. 28 Facebook post.
“Phosphorus is an important mineral that cattle require, and in many parts of the country (phosphorus) is severely lacking,” RaynerAg wrote.
“As a result many cattle will chew bones; or even road kill. ... Red soils cattle may be more deficient and more likely to look for alternative sources of (phosphorus) such as old bones or animals,” the post said.
Smithsonian Magazine reports there have been other documented incidents of cows eating another animal, including a 2007 YouTube video showing a cow eating a baby chick.
Research shows “a huge range of herbivores, including deer, camels, giraffes, pigs, cows and sheep, are known from time-to-time to eat other animals, or animal parts they find laying around,” according to the magazine. Such behavior is likely “motivated by a mineral deficiency,” researcher Darren Naish told Smithsonian Magazine in 2014.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 11:50 AM with the headline "Why was a cow seen chewing on a python’s head in remote Australia? Experts have ideas."