It’s one for the hiss-story books. 

Geoff Mitchell took a snap of two dead snakes by a roadside near Griffith, NSW, last week and it went viral.

In the picture it appears the brown snake has started eating the black snake, only for the black snake to chew a hole through the inside of the brown snake. 

On radio station 3AW, Mr Mitchell said it was common for brown snakes to eat black snakes, but that he had “seen none where one snake has punched a hole through another". 

Readers from across Victoria had their own theories about how the two snakes met their demise. 

The Border Mail reader Destiny Paton theorised the brown snake was dead and the black snake bit a hole and slithered in. 

Christina Peel suggested on the Bendigo Advertiser Facebook page that the black snake was eating the food from inside the brown’s stomach after it was killed by a car.

Fellow Bendigo Advertiser reader John Jones said there was "no way" a snake could chew through another. 

"It must have been attacked by some kind of hawk and ripped a hole where the black snake could get out," he said. 

Likewise, Border Mail reader Nathan Masseu said the hole was created by something else. 

"Surely venomous snakes like the red belly only have fangs for injecting venom, not teeth to chew through things," he said. 

Greg Keane agreed on The Border Mail Facebook page, saying "snakes don't have teeth to bite through things".

Still on the Border, Chris Hogarth was doubtful the black snake could chew its way out of the brown snake. 

“I don't see how the snake could open its mouth while inside the other,” he wrote. “I think as he suggested in the radio interview it's likely a bird or something had a go at the fighting snakes and put a hole in the brown which the black crawled out of. Both are venomous so that could explain why the black still died.”

Down south, Ballarat Courier reader Simon Passalick was all for the black – "that's why you don't kill black snakes… they also like to eat tiger snakes", he wrote.

Over to the west, Barbara M Clark was feeling for the brown – “Must have been horribly hungry to eat a black snake” she wrote on the Wimmera Mail-Times Facebook page. 

Bendigo Advertiser reader Josh Kisler provided proof, sharing a picture of a black snake eating a brown snake.

Fellow Bendigo Advertiser reader Rob Thoms was less concerned about the picture and more about the species themselves – “I still laugh over the lack of originality in the names. I wouldn't mess with any of these snakes, just give them cooler names is all!”.

But possibly the most frightening comment of all was from Ian White on the Bendigo Advertiser’s Facebook page... 

“What a breakthrough! We have discovered a mutant black snake that has developed the ability to chew. This is significant as not only does it have the ability to inject venom, after it has immobilised its prey, it can chew it at its leisure rather than waste energy by swallowing it whole. The next step on the evolutionary ladder will be the ability to crunch through bone. That will then make it the apex predator, and the most feared predator around!”

Eeeek!