TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN (Australia) 01 June 05 Python dinner a tourist attraction (Peter Michael)
Cairns: Resort guests yesterday told how a giant python dropped from a tree and swallowed a fully-grown wallaby in front of about 30 stunned onlookers at the Palm Cove Novotel resort.
"It just dropped down on the wallaby and started crushing the life out of it," said witness Laurie Punter.
"When we came back with the camera it was still doing the constricting part of the kill . . . and then it decided to have a feast."
About 30 onlookers watched in a mixture of horror and morbid fascination as the amethystine python, measured at more than four metres long, began swallowing the wallaby whole.
"There were a couple of people with small children under the age of two or three watching," Mr Punter said.
"And several made the comment about how the younger children were comparable in size to the wallaby, which was about two feet long."
It only enhanced the "deadliest creatures" image of the Australian Outback for some of the overseas guests, he said.
The monster snake, also known as a scrub python, had to dislocate its jaws to eat the wallaby.
"It took about 20 minutes for it to strangle the wallaby. And the whole eating process took about 2 1/2 hours," Mr Punter said. "People from Norway and Germany could not believe a python was devouring such a large animal."
Cairns Tropical Zoo reptile keeper Roxanne Pellatt, who collected the snake for release, said it was the biggest prey she had ever seen taken by a python.
"It was not hard for us to collect because it was so stuffed. It could not move very fast," she said.
Python dinner a tourist attraction