It takes you back to that moment in Alien where the monster bursts from John Hurt’s chest.
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The series of photos show gruesome images of a snake eel bursting through the stomach of a heron midair.
The New York Post reports,
The one-in-a-million shot, snapped by amateur photographer Sam Davis in Delaware, shows the eel dangling from the bird’s gut as it nonchalantly soars onward, Live Science reports.
“The heron didn’t seem to act much differently,” Davis, 58, of Maryland, told the outlet. “It was in the water and flying around.”
Several eagles and a fox were later spotted following the bird near a shoreline — possibly to scavenge dinner in case either critter croaked, Davis said.
Snake eels can perform daring escapes by slicing open their predator’s stomach with the pointed tip of their tails, which are generally used for digging.
But experts called the gutsy move strange in the avian world.
“I would think this is either very rare or very rarely seen in a bird species, at least as far as I am aware,” John Pogonoski, an ichthyologist with the Australian National Fish Collection, told the outlet.
Davis shot the image with a telephoto lens from more than 225 feet away, and recently shared it on Instagram, calling it his favorite picture of all time.
More at New York Post
