The sight of a deadly brown snake eating a carpet python nearly its own size would be enough to give most people the creeps, but for snakecatchers Sally and Norman Hill it was a rare and fascinating display.
The pair, who run N&S Snakecatching, were called to a home in the Ipswich suburb of Goodna west of Brisbane Monday afternoon to see the chilling sight.
"We've never seen something like this before, it's very rare any snake catcher gets an opportunity to witness something like this," Sally told AAP.
"We always heard the old saying 'if you've got a carpet python you won't have a brown' so obviously that's a myth."
Sally said they stayed at the property for a few hours to allow the snake to finish its meal.
"We just put him into the bag, if you disturb them too much they'll regurgitate their meal and it's just a waste."
Brown snakes usually eat mice, frogs and lizards, but have been known to eat other snakes, even other brown snakes.
Supplied image of an Eastern Brown Snake eating a Carpet Pyton at a house in the Ipswich suburb of Goodna, Queensland, Monday. Source: Facebook
Sally said the incident could have been caused by population pressure leading to competition for food, with the number of sightings of browns increasing in recent years.
"We started in 2015, so we have pretty much doubled what we were doing when we started, " she said.
The incident follows pictures being widely shared online of a large python eating a fully grown wallaby near Cairns on Sunday afternoon.
And a woman was bitten by a wild green tree snake at Australia Zoo north of Brisbane on Monday and was taken to hospital as a precaution.
