R.I.P. Hungry Python

Talk about biting off more than you can chew.  A couple of weeks ago in the Lake Eland Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a python ate a porcupine.  Yep.  You read correctly.  The python ate the entire porcupine.  The porcupine, before it became dinner, weighed over thirty pounds.  The size of the porcupine wasn't the problem, according to park rangers.  Pythons can eat animals weighing up to fifty pounds.  Apparently this isn't the first time a snake has eaten a porcupine as evidenced by a 2003 study entitled:  "Prickly food: snakes preying upon porcupines."  As a result of that study we now know that the quills of the porcupine aren't easily digested by much of any thing.  Seriously, did we need a study to tell us that?  At any rate, this particular snake that ate the porcupine died.  However, the cause of death has not yet been determined.  It could have been the porcupine quills and the snake's impossible task of digesting them.  Or it could have been that the snake, in some sort of post porcupine eating stupor, fell off of a cliff.  Based on these sketchy findings my advice is that if you happen to be a snake (and yes a lot of snakes will be reading this) don't fall off of a cliff after eating a porcupine.  Come to think of it, that's good advice for anyone.