With arms outstretched and mouth open: This is the moment a mouse seemed to beg for help when it was suffocated by a 3-foot-long python before being eaten whole in Indonesia .
The footage was captured by reptile owner Dzul Dzulfikri, 48, from Indonesia, as he fed the live rodent to his pet earlier this year.
Dzulfikri dropped the mouse into the python’s cage and then grabbed his camera as the predator swiftly struck at its prey, wrapping the mouse around its tail before constricting it to death over the course of five minutes.
While pythons can be trained to eat frozen mice, most will only eat live prey that they have killed themselves, so Dzufikri gave her pet live prey.
“While I was happy and excited to have captured these shots, I felt quite sad for the mouse as I watched it struggle through its final moments,” he said.
Python owner Dzul Dzulfikri from Indonesia captured this image of a mouse appearing to beg for help as his pet reptile choked it to death during a feeding session earlier this year.
Dzufikri said he dropped the mouse alive into his python’s cage and then grabbed his camera to capture the moments after the reptile attacked and as it constrained its prey to death.
Having killed the mouse, the python proceeded to eat the rodent whole. Most snakes eat their prey in one go by unhinging their jaws, and won’t need to feed again for weeks, or sometimes months.
While captive pythons can be trained to eat frozen mice, their instinct is to eat only freshly killed prey, which means most will need to be fed live animals, even if kept as pets.