Olive Python Swallows Freshwater Crocodile In Australia Because Of A 'Good Matchup'
ByIf ESPN college basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb had anything to say about the olive python that fought, killed, and then swallowed a Johnson Crocodile in Australia this past weekend, he'd have chalked it up to a "bad matchup" for the crocodile (or, vice versa, a good one for the snake) and then moved on to more worthy beasts like bears, lions, and larger reptiles without giving the snake its fair credit. That's basically what he said about #6 Villanova (26-3, 14-2) when assessing their 26-win season during halftime of their game against Marquette on Sunday.
If pythons had the same success this year as Villanova, a so called "matchup team" even though they've lost to just two opponents the entire season and beaten over 20 (including #8 Kansas and #24 Iowa), scientists might be concerned about their overpopulation -- and the endangerment of crocodiles.
Because snakes don't always win against crocs, according to National Geographic. If it was so easy, it probably wouldn't have taken the one captured in numerous cell phone videos four hours to dispatch its prey.
"Both of these are apex predators in their environment," Nat Geo wrote in a Q & A session once the news story went viral. "Big Johnson's crocs eat little pythons and vice versa."
Neither of the reptiles caught fighting by residents of Queensland, Australia were the largest representations of their kind -- the snake was about 10-feet and the croc was only three feet -- which is why it was somewhat of a fair fight. The python likely prevailed because it also owned a decent weight advantage (20 pounds to seven pounds), according to Nat Geo.
"[The crocodile] was fighting at the start, so it was trying to keep its head out of water and survive," Tiffany Corlis, a local author who filmed the scene on her cell phone, told the Independent. "But as the morning sort of progressed, you could tell that both of them were getting a little weaker. Finally, the croc sort of gave in."
Maybe the more diminutive crocodile was a good matchup for the python. Yet, if it wins fights like that and greater 26 out of 29 times (while surviving to fight another day after the other three), that's a special python that, if placed in a tournament with 64 or 65 other pythons and crocodiles of various sizes, might advance pretty far.