Some discussions of feeding snakes (usually, discussions specifically about thawing feeders) either explicitly claim or implicitly imply that snakes are obligate feeders on live animals and captive feeding should bear that in mind (by making sure the prey item doesn't look/taste/smell too dead). As it turns out, this isn't entirely accurate.
While I could not find any reference to Python regius feeding on carrion, apparently it is documented in the genus: "Indian pythons have been documented to eat carrion". (Invasive Pythons in the United States: Ecology of an Introduced Predator, By Michael E. Dorcas, John D. Willson)
An older (2002) lit review found 39 published accounts of snakes eating carrion, including that which "smelled strongly of decomposition, or contained fly larvae".
Scavenging by snakes: An examination of the literature, Travis L. DeVault and Aaron R. Krochmal, December 2002 Herpetologica 58(4):429-436
A more recent account noted scavenging by a green racer of a bird that had rigor mortis. This paper also cites ten more published accounts that post date the 2002 lit review:
Death and life on the roadway: scavenging behaviour of the green racer snake Philodryas patagoniensis, João Luiz Ucha and Tiago Santos, August 2017 Herpetology Notes 10:439-441
So, that is fifty documented instances of snakes eating carrion, which is quite a decent data set. No moral to the story, really -- just food for thought.
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