This is the stomach-turning moment a centipede burst out of viper in a last ditch attempt for freedom.
A group of researchers stumbled upon a grisly scene during a field study in Macedonia last year. Both creatures were dead.
Researchers believe that the 20cm young snake may have underestimated the size of the prey and paid a fatal price.
After a post-mortem, the scientists think it's possible that the centipede quite literally eviscerated the snake from the inside out.
The reptile was found on Golem Grad, also known as Snake Island, and was reported in the journal Ecologica Montenegrina by Serbian herpetologist Ljiljana Tomovic last month.
Tomovic came to a conclusion that the juvenile snake also ate its meal alive due to the full-grown arthropod's tough exoskeleton.
"We cannot dismiss the possibility that the snake had swallowed the centipede alive, and that, paradoxically, the prey has eaten its way through the snake, almost reaching its freedom," she wrote in an article headed "Two fangs good, a hundred legs better."