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Eerie Photo Shows Snake Eel Bursting Out Of Bird’s Stomach In Midair

This is not a picture of the heron within the story. (Credit: Shutterstock Karl Allen Lugmayer)

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A photographer captured the moment a snake eel burst through the stomach of a heron in midair.

Sam Davis, an engineer from Maryland, took the photos in Delaware, according to a report published Tuesday by Live Science.


“The heron didn’t seem to act much differently,” Davis told Live Science. “It was in the water and flying around.”

Originally Davis thought the snake eel had bitten the neck of the bird and didn’t notice that the eel was coming out of the heron’s stomach until he went to edit the photos.

“So I guess it was still alive at some point,” he reportedly said. (RELATED: Wilbur Beast The French Bulldog Elected Mayor Of Small Kentucky Town)

“I could see the eel, you could see its eyes,” he said. “It was actually coming out the other end.”

John Pogonoski, an ichthyologist with the Australian National Fish Collection at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), claimed there is a chance that both animals did survive.

“The heron possibly survived, it didn’t look too inconvenienced, but would depend on how well the wound healed and if it was able to avoid an infection,”

As for the snake eel, it “would only have survived if it was dropped over or very close to water with a salinity it could normally tolerate,” he said.