Monitor lizard eats & regurgitates huge python in Potong Pasir

Monitor lizard eats huge python in Potong Pasir

A monitor lizard was spotted devouring a large python near Kallang River in Potong Pasir on Friday (3 May).

Emma Robertson Chia, a resident of a nearby HDB, shared videos of the incident on the Facebook group Singapore Wildlife Sightings.

According to Ms Chia’s post, the monitor lizard had nearly finished eating the python when it suddenly started regurgitating it.

However, by the evening of 5 May, after checking the same location, she found that the python was completely gone.

Regurgitates huge python to speed up decomposition

Ms Chia and her daughter were walking their dog along the Kallang River at Potong Pasir Ave 3 when they came across the monitor lizard feasting on a python that was longer than itself.

The python “was covered in flies and quite smelly”, she wrote in her Facebook post.

However, she was uncertain whether the monitor had killed the python or if it was already dead when the monitor found it.

Source: Emma Robertson Chia on Facebook

The monitor was almost done swallowing the snake when it “regurgitated the whole thing”.

“What I’ve since learned is that they do this [regurgitating] to speed up the decomposition of the snake to make it easier to eat,” Ms Chia explained.

Python was gone two days later

The next morning, Ms Chia returned to the scene and found the monitor lizard had managed to break through the python’s skin.

As it fed on it, a second lizard also stood nearby, hoping for a bite.

By the evening of 5 May, the python was all gone.

“I was so excited because being a snake lover, I thought, well they are obviously around, so hopefully I’ll get to see one. But it’s been two and a half years and still haven’t spotted one,” Ms Chia told MS News.

She also added:

I love our stretch of river! There’s so much life! We have a white bellied sea eagles’ nest, otters, so many monitor lizards, hornbills, cockatoos, king fishers, parakeets, wood peckers, spitting cobras. I hope it won’t get developed any further so these creatures continue to have a safe place to live.

Also read: Man in M’sia grabs monitor lizard by its tail & swings it around before flinging it into drain

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Featured image adapted from Emma Robertson Chia on Facebook