A mountain biker took photos of a python \with a full belly on June 14 at the Lake Eland Game Reserve in a coastal part of KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, but on June 20, the snake was found dead.

Rangers at the game preserve opened and autopsied the python, discovering that it consumed a 32-inch, 30-pound porcupine. But it is not unusual for a snake to swallow a porcupine.

"The porcupine did not injure the snake at all and eating the porcupine should not have caused the snake to die," said Jennifer Fuller, general manager of Lake Eland Game Reserve, The Huffington Post reported. "The real cause of death is unknown."

However, according to a study published in 2003 at the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetology, a porcupine's quills can pierce all the way through a hungry snake's body.

The snake fell off a rocky ledge, but it was unclear if the snake was already dead when it fell or if the fall caused some of the quills to puncture its digestive tract, the Telegraph reported.