Details of the story were provided by National Geographic, who tend to pull no punches in showing some truly horrifying examples of that whole “Circle of Life” thing. This one is not only a bit gross, but it’s also bizarre as hell.

The video below was posted by YouTuber Christopher Reynolds, who says he was leaving his mother’s house near Newton, Texas when he spotted a large snake attempting — and ultimately failing — to consume a smaller snake. His wife encouraged him to capture the creepy incident on camera, and this is the result:

If you watched that clip (and I totally understand if you couldn’t), you noticed the smaller, lighter-colored snake was very much alive at the time. The outcome involved a very slippery escape, in which the almost-meal slowly oozed right back out of the larger reptile’s digestive tract.

National Geographic consulted reptile experts to examine Reynolds’ footage, and the consensus was that this regurgitation of oversized prey (sometimes still alive at the time) is not uncommon — especially when the snake is interrupted during while swallowing.

“Anyone who keeps snakes knows you should leave them alone after they eat,” said Kenney Krysko, herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, “because you can make them regurgitate.”

So keep that bit of expert knowledge in mind, for the inevitable moment when you see one of your friends disappearing down the gullet of a 12-foot anaconda…