Wild footage captures an aquatic garter snake in the Sierra Nevada mountains wrestling with a brown trout before somehow swallowing the hefty catch whole.<\/p>\n
Instagram user Madelin Woods<\/a> was among a group of campers who recently stumbled upon the amazing sight, first spotting the snake<\/a> dragging its still-flopping prey out of the water.<\/p>\n \u201cToo wild not to post,\u201d she wrote alongside the stunning images, which have racked up more than 34,000 likes.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s head.<\/p>\n A snake wrestles with a fish before swallowing the catch whole in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Instagram\/@madelinw<\/p>\n The reptile was identified as an aquatic garter snake. Instagram\/@madelinw<\/p>\n Getting the supersized meal down was apparently no easy feat. Instagram\/@madelinw<\/p>\n The snake slithered back into the water with the whole fish visibly in its body. Instagram\/@madelinw<\/p>\n But getting the supersized meal down was apparently no easy feat. <\/p>\n \u201cOver the course of an hour, we watched as he struggled with half the fish in his mouth, retreating and repositioning a couple times,\u201d Woods wrote.<\/p>\n The group eventually left the determined diner alone and headed off to lunch themselves. When they returned, \u201cHe had the whole fish in his body and slithered away.\u201d<\/p>\n Even a woman who ran the campground was stunned by the spectacle, telling the campers \u201cshe had never seen anything like this, or even a fish this big in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the California Morning Report newsletter\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalifornia’s top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Garter snakes are skilled swimmers and active hunters, and can pursue prey underwater, according to the University of Nevada, Reno<\/a>. Their diets can include rodents, birds, amphibians, invertebrates and fish.\u00a0<\/p>\n Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters <\/p>\n California Post News: Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, TikTok<\/a>, X<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, WhatsApp<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t
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