I can't give any references for this, except that
I read it somewhere: well actually it was an old (1890s? 1930s?) tome on
biology that I'd bought to help decorate a pub -- but I liked the inside of it too though no-one else would ever look in it.
In a zoo... and again I can't say where, or when... they had two pythons. Then one morning the zookeepers came to work, and they had one python.
The nature of a python is that it's got a small but determined brain, with the following syllogism hard-wired in it:
- This is in my mouth.
- Therefore it must be food.
- Therefore I have to keep swallowing until it's gone.