A fisherman, Sarat Kumar Pradhan, went to harvest fish from a pond near his house on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in eastern India on November 25 and was shocked to find two snakes in his net.

One was a dangerous banded krait and another a harmless checkered keelback snake.

A volunteer of Snake Helpline Arun Baral went to the spot and deftly cut the net with scissors to free the snakes.

He also found that the net had trapped 11 crabs and three fish.

Subhendu Mallik founder of Snake Helpline said: "The checkered keelback was probably trapped while trying to steal a fish caught in the net. Then the banded krait, which likes to feed on snakes, got trapped while trying to hunt the checkered keelback. This is how the food chain works.”

A fisherman, Sarat Kumar Pradhan, went to harvest fish from a pond near his house on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in eastern India on November 25.

He was shocked to find two snakes writhing in the net. One was a dangerous banded krait and another a harmless checkered keelback snake.

A volunteer of Snake Helpline Arun Baral went to the spot, and deftly cut the net with scissors to free the snakes.

He also found that the net had trapped 11 crabs and 3 fish.

Subhendu Mallik founder of Snake Helpline said: "The checkered keel back was probably trapped while trying to steal a fish caught in the net. Then the banded krait, which likes to feed on snakes, got trapped while trying to hunt the checkered keel back. This is how food chain works.”