Huge swimming snake eats catfish in incredible photo

An Illinois fisherman snapped a photo that's gone viral of a huge snake munching on a bullhead catfish in Iowa waters.

Colin Wehrle of Moline, Ill., sent the Iowa Department of Natural Resources his photo via Facebook on May 26, entitled "Took this photo Saturday while fishing in Iowa. This snake has a tasty catfish for lunch." He told The Des Moines Register on Thursday that he took the photo May 23 with a GoPro mounted on a GoPole at a private lake in southeast Iowa.

"We saw the snake swimming across the water and we saw something in its mouth," he wrote. "We thought he had a mouse so we moved the boat back to get a better look. That's when I saw he had a catfish in his mouth and we couldn't believe it."

Wehrle said he snapped about 140 photos before the snake jetted into some bushes with his meal.

The Iowa DNR confirmed Thursday the animal as a Northern water snake, a non-venomous animal.

Jessie Brown of the DNR said Thursday in an email that some may be concerned this is a cottonmouth, commonly called a water moccasin, which is venemous. But those are not found in Iowa.

Northern water snakes are distinguishable from their venemous look-alikes by their pupils: cottonmouths have a vertical slit pupil while Northern water snakes have a round pupil, Brown said.

Brown added that you can find Northern water snakes near any kind of water that contains fish, which is primarily what they eat.

"It appears to be capturing a black bullhead, which it could possibly swallow if it eats the fish head-first," Brown said in an email.

There are four venomous snakes in Iowa, the DNR wrote: timber rattlesnake, prairie rattlesnake, Massasauga rattlesnake and copperhead. Timber rattlers are listed as threatened or endangered.

One commenter named Jamie Marie Roush wrote, "THIS is why I only swim in pools!!!"

Many commenters posted photos of snakes they've also spotted in Iowa waterways.

The post has been shared over 9,700 times and counting.