Surgeons removed a large rose apple from a cobra in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.

From an initial X-ray, Dr. Indramani Nath of Odisha University’s Veterinary Surgery department was unable to identify what was making the serpent's stomach bloated.

Footage from April 26 shows workers carefully taking out the fruit from the Indian spectacled cobra's stomach.

Dr Nath said: “The snake was seriously constipated as it could not digest the fruit or pass it out. It would have surely died without the surgery.”

The cobra was found by a rescuer at Snake Helpline and its General Secretary Subhendu Mallik said: “The rose apple fruit is never on a cobra’s menu. A prey may have tried to eat the fruit leaving its smell on it. The cobra must have swallowed it thinking it was a rat.”

A four feet long Indian Spectacled Cobra was found with a bloated stomach in Puri district in eastern India on April 25.

The next day, a rescuer of Snake Helpline took it to the Odisha University’s Veterinary Surgery department in Bhubaneshwar. Dr. Indramani Nath took an X-ray but could not identify the foreign object inside the snake’s stomach.

He put the snake under general anaesthesia and operated its stomach to pull out the object, which astonishingly turned out to be a Rose Apple fruit.

Dr Nath said: “The snake was seriously constipated as it could not digest the fruit or pass it out. It would have surely died without the surgery.”

The General Secretary of Snake Helpline, Subhendu Mallik, said: “The Rose apple fruit is never on a cobra’s menu. A prey may have tried to eat the fruit leaving its smell on it. The cobra must have swallowed it thinking it was a rat.”