Wild footage captures an aquatic garter snake in the Sierra Nevada mountains wrestling with a brown trout before somehow swallowing the hefty catch whole.
Instagram user Madelin Woods was among a group of campers who recently stumbled upon the amazing sight, first spotting the snake dragging its still-flopping prey out of the water.
“Too wild not to post,” she wrote alongside the stunning images, which have racked up more than 34,000 likes.
The photos show the dark-colored serpent stretched across a rocky shoreline, with its jaws seemingly impossibly widened around the trout, whose body appears dramatically thicker than the snake’s head.
A snake wrestles with a fish before swallowing the catch whole in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Instagram/@madelinw
The reptile was identified as an aquatic garter snake. Instagram/@madelinw
Getting the supersized meal down was apparently no easy feat. Instagram/@madelinw
The snake slithered back into the water with the whole fish visibly in its body. Instagram/@madelinw
But getting the supersized meal down was apparently no easy feat.
“Over the course of an hour, we watched as he struggled with half the fish in his mouth, retreating and repositioning a couple times,” Woods wrote.
The group eventually left the determined diner alone and headed off to lunch themselves. When they returned, “He had the whole fish in his body and slithered away.”
Even a woman who ran the campground was stunned by the spectacle, telling the campers “she had never seen anything like this, or even a fish this big in that area.”
Sign up for the California Morning Report newsletter
California’s top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.
Thanks for signing up!
Garter snakes are skilled swimmers and active hunters, and can pursue prey underwater, according to the University of Nevada, Reno. Their diets can include rodents, birds, amphibians, invertebrates and fish.
Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn
California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X
California Post Opinion
California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!
California Post App: Download here!
Home delivery: Sign up here!
Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!