Wild Cobra Seen Swallowing Live Viper Whole

A startling scene was caught on camera last week in South Africa’s Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park by a sightseer.

Engineer Klaus Bohmer was on safari in the park when he came across something he’d never seen before. A Cape cobra was devouring a puff adder before his very eyes, slowly gulping its body down as the live snake wriggled helplessly.

“We were on our way back to camp in the late afternoon. It had been an uneventful drive up to this point,” Bohmer told Latest Sightings of the encounter. “However, as luck would have it, another car was stopped. They were pointing excitedly at something on the road. That’s when we saw something we would most certainly have missed. Right there, I saw a snake devouring another. An event so surreal and unique that I’d never seen anything like it before.”

Bohmer marveled at the fact that the African viper stayed alive for as long as it did. “The tail of the puff adder was still wiggling even when it was mostly inside the cobra,” he noted. “It wasn’t just muscle spasms; it seemed like the puff adder was still somewhat alive.”

Cobras are rather notorious for consuming other snakes, even dead ones. According to National Geographic, 14 to 43 percent of diets for all six species of cobra are snakes, including other cobras. Their agility, and tremendously toxic venom, makes them one of the most feared predators. Cobras will often specifically seek out puff adders for their meals. The scene glimpsed by Bohmer and his companions may have been rare to them, but in the wild it’s commonplace.

Unfortunately, the sightseers had to leave before the cobra finished its dinner, so were unable to catch video of the entire incident. “We had to head back to camp, leaving the somewhat amazing yet sad scene behind,” Bohmer lamented. “It was a super rare sighting, and I doubt I’ll ever witness anything like it again,” the outdoorsman said.

“It remains in my memory as a truly unforgettable experience.”