Tourist films snake furiously digging deep hole at Uluru: ‘So rare to see’

May 3, 2024 Vaseline stjohnson 0

An Aussie family visiting Uluru have captured the “very cool” moment they stumbled upon a highly-venomous snake digging a large hole in the Outback’s iconic red dirt.

Footage shows the long brown snake repeatedly furiously shoving its head into the ground and flinging dirt to the side of the hole as the group watches on in fascination.

A Sydney man named Darren posted the clip to social media on Thursday, revealing he took the video during sunset.

An Aussie family visiting Uluru were stunned to see the snake meticulously working to dig a hole in the dirt. Source: Darren Cook/Facebook

“I think it’s trying to find one of those field mice. It can smell it I reckon, it keeps going deeper and deeper,” he can be heard saying behind the camera. “He’s in a fair way,” a woman adds.

Numerous Aussies were quick to rave about the snake’s “amazing behavior” and “determination”.

“This is so sick! So rare to see,” one viewer commented.

“I don’t remember ever seeing a video of a venomous snake using their head to dig out a hole like that,” another person said. “Very cool! No arms or legs but they’re still very capable animals. “Snakes are amazing.”

After watching the footage, Dr Andrew Amey, Collection Manager Herpetology at Queensland Museum, confirmed to Yahoo News Australia that the snake in the video looks like a Western Brown Snake, “although it’s difficult to be sure.”

“Generally, snakes are not great diggers, so it is unlikely they would be digging a hole,” he said before agreeing with Darren’s theory.

“It looks to me like this snake has found a burrow with a rodent in it and the rodent is defending itself, hence the sudden withdrawals of the snake when it gets bitten,” Dr Amey added.

Experts confirmed to Yahoo the Western Brown Snake was likely searching for food. Source: Darren Cook/Facebook

Reptile expert Dr Glenn Shea told Yahoo that “although rarely documented, this sort of digging behavior has been reported previously for several Australian snakes.”

Many snake species that live around Uluru “are burrowers that spend most of their lives underground,” Professor Rick Shine told Yahoo on Friday.

“The snake may well have been hoping to find an edible morsel at the bottom of the hole – perhaps a lizard or a mouse,” he said.

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