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I had to post this for my non-Australian readers. Please, come visit our country – see the parrot eating snakes and spiders. Not even dogs or cats are safe.

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Snake caught eating cocky

Monday, November 3, 2008

© The Cairns Post

LAST month, it was a spider chowing down on local birdlife that caused a media frenzy around the world.

Not to be outdone, a python has taken up the challenge with a hapless sulphur-crested cockatoo (bird) falling victim to its hungry jaws last Thursday night.

Artist and Clifton Beach resident Cindy Lane was painting in her studio around 8pm when she heard a “couple of loud squawks” coming from the bougainvillea tree in her backyard.

View more photos of the snake eating the huge cockatoo bird.

On closer inspection, she found the python coiling itself tightly around the bird high in the tree’s branches.

“I considered jumping in to save him, but his last breath was literally being squeezed from him as we approached,” she told The Cairns Post.

She said the python then took about two hours to complete his meal after “one false start” with another half hour to enjoy his spoils before moving on.

“It was difficult to watch but at the same time mesmerising,” Ms Lane said.

“It was just so clever how it used his upper coils to get the wings aligned so it could swallow the whole thing.”

Python feasts on pet cat

Saturday, March 1, 2008

A MICROCHIP implanted in a Cairns family’s missing cat helped them track down their pet – inside a 4m python.

The owner of the Siamese-Persian said her cat went missing on Wednesday night and when she searched for it the following morning, she instead found a python with a suspiciously looking bulge in its belly.

“My heart started to leap and I thought, ‘oh no, that’s it’,” the woman, who did not want to be named, said.

Wildlife rescue worker Michael Stevens took the python to Southside Veterinary Surgery at Woree, where vet Wade McAuley scanned it for the cat’s microchip and found a positive match.

“We did have him microchipped so that put our minds at rest, but it was still very sad,” the cat’s owner said.

The snake has since been released into the wild at the back of Edmonton.

A 5m python that stalked and killed a Kuranda family’s pet dog this week is also set for release
after vet and reptile expert Andrew Easton gave it a clean bill of health.

The snake, nicknamed Fluffy, created headlines when The Cairns Post revealed how it ate the Peric family’s dog - after pythons also ate their cat and guinea pigs.

“The snake is in a pretty healthy condition,” Dr Easton from Kuranda Veterinary Surgery said.

“We’ve had a feel over him and we had a look in his mouth to see whether there were any injuries from his recent escapade.

“The only potential problems are things like collars, but most of the time they’ll be passed right through.”

Dr Easton said it could take the snake two to four weeks to fully digest his latest meal.

“If everything goes fine with him, we’ll probably look over him once more before his release to make sure he has no diseases before he goes into the wild,” he said.

Queensland Parks and Wildlife northern division spokesman Scott Sullivan said the amethystine or scrub python was the largest of the Queensland python species.

Mr Sullivan said the largest authenticated specimen was recorded at 5.6m, weighing about 28kg.

Monster python eats pet

Sophia Browne

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

VIDEO AND PHOTO GALLERY: A Kuranda couple fears for their children’s safety after a 5m python devoured their dog in front of them, just weeks after other snakes killed their cat and guinea pig.

Daniel Peric said he now would not leave his two children, aged five and seven, alone in any part of the house, after the “enormous” python ate his silky terrier-cross chihuahua about 9pm on Monday.

“Actually watching it unfold before your eyes was pretty gut wrenching,” he said.

“We’d had the dog about five years, so it was part of the family.”

Mr Peric said in the weeks before, the family had found their cat’s body, which looked like something had attempted to swallow it and on Sunday a smaller python had eaten their pet guinea pig.

“When it happens once, you think it’s a one-off, but last night I thought “this is serious,” he said.

“We have ducted air-conditioning. Call it paranoia, but my big fear is that a snake will get in there.”

Australian Venom Zoo owner Stuart Douglas took the call from the distressed Peric family on Monday night and arrived to remove the scrub python within 20 minutes.

“They were very upset but they still had the decency to call us to come and get it,” Mr Douglas said.

“It was at the bottom of the veranda, they’d thrown chairs at it (the python) to try to stop it, but it had already eaten the animal.”

Mr Douglas said by the time he arrived, all that could be seen of the dog was its back legs and tail.

“It only took about 30 minutes to eat the dog, but it will be digesting it for two days,” he said.

Mr Douglas said pythons were amazing animals that belonged in the Far North but people needed to be aware that pets were potential prey.

“These pythons used to feed on wallabies but now they feed on cats and dogs in suburbia,” he said.

“This python actively stalked their dog.”

He said if anyone saw a large snake near their home they should call someone to remove it as soon as possible.

“There’s someone in every area of Queensland who will come around for a donation and basically volunteer to collect it.”

Mr Douglas said he would wait until the python had fully digested its prey before releasing it.

Snake’s wallaby meal

Thursday, February 28, 2008

WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES & VIDEO: Darren Cleland could not believe his eyes when he saw this monster python on the banks of the Barron River west of Cairns.

The former Cairns councillor was at his rural property at Bilwon last month when he heard a neighbour’s dog barking and rushed down to the water’s edge to find the snake devouring a full-size wallaby with a joey in its pouch.

He estimated the python was at least 5m long.

“We were more amazed than anything that a python could get its mouth around an animal of that size,” he told The Cairns Post last night.

“We’ve seen a few snakes but never anything this big.”

Mr Cleland said the experience was a good lesson for his children to be wary of all snakes.

“We figured if it could eat the wallaby, it could easily eat our five-year-old.”

Mr Cleland sent the images to The Cairns Post after it yesterday revealed how a 5m python swallowed the Peric family’s pet dog on Monday night.

Daniel Peric said he now would not leave his two children, aged five and seven, alone in any part of their Kuranda house.

The python was removed from the Peric’s home by Australian Venom Zoo owner Stuart Douglas.

It will be released back into the wild away from humans and roads in the next few days, after being checked by a reptile specialist and officers from Queensland Parks and Wildlife.

In the meantime the python, named Fluffy because of its appetite for furry animals, is curled up in a special room at the Venom Zoo while it digests its prey.

Mr Douglas said scrub pythons grew up to 8m in length and there was documentary evidence they could break a man’s arm or strangle an adult to death.

The Cairns Post had a huge response to yesterday’s story, with more than 20,000 page views of the article at www.cairns.com.au.

had a huge response to yesterday’s story, with more than 20,000 page views of the article at www.cairns.com.au.

More than 6000 people have already viewed our python picture gallery on the site.

Spider eats bird

Thursday, October 23, 2008

© The Cairns Post

THESE amazing images of a mammoth spider devouring a bird were taken in the backyard of an Atherton property, west of Cairns.

And the images, which are being cirulated via email worldwide, are real, according to wildlife experts.

See all the photos of the spider eating the bird

The photos, believed to have been taken earlier this week, show the spider clenching its legs around a lifeless bird trapped in a web.

Joel Shakespeare, the head spider keeper at NSW’s Australian Reptile Park, told ninemsn that the spider was a Golden Orb Weaver.

Another brutal wildlife meal

Monster python eats pet

Check out our insect gallery

“Normally they prey on large insects, it’s unusual to see one eating a bird,” he said.

Mr Shakepeare told ninemsn he had seen golden orb weaver spiders as big as a human hand but the northern species in tropical areas were known to grow larger.

Mr Shakespeare said the bird, a Chestnut-breasted Mannikin which appears frozen in an angel-like pose in the pictures, is likely to have flown into the web and got caught.

“It wouldn`t eat the whole bird,” he told ninemsn.

“It uses its venom to break down the bird for eating and what it leaves is a food parcel,” he said.

Queensland Museum’s Greg Czechura is reported ninemsn as saying cases of the Golden Orb Weaver eating small birds were “well known but rare”.

“It builds a very strong web,” he told ninemsn.

But he said the spider would not have attacked until the bird weakened due to its struggle to free its wings.

“The more they struggle, the more tangled up and exhausted they get and they go into stress.”

“If a spider gets a bird, it`s a very lucky spider,” Mr Czechura said.

Read our exclusive story about the photographer who took these amazing images and check out The Weekend Post tomorrow for our exclusive interview and more images.