Animal Behavior - Photo Essay
Snakes
For many people all snakes are scary. The heart races, the mind becomes frantic, and an atavistic response is stimulated - they beat the snake flat with whatever is handy. Most snakes are harmless and all perform an honorable duty as they feed. They are predators - the larger species specialize in mice and rats. Some eat bird eggs, nestling birds, while others specialize in lizards or toads. The smaller ones eat invertebrates.
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The hognose snake is the "favorite" snake of West Texans (Llaneros). Most people can identify them by sight - the turned up little nose is quite distinctive. Most are less than two feet long.
Like most snakes, hognoses will coil up when they perceive their life is danger. Humans are huge to a little snake (or even a big snake), too large to eat. We might step on them.
Even when the photographer placed his camera in front of its nose, the snake remained motionless.
Hognose snakes often play dead if they are "messed with" but this one was habituated to human handling, so the photographer had to try to flip it over. The snake refused to stay upside down. A hognose that does play dead will play dead again if set right side up - "I am dead, dag-nab it!"
Each individual hognose has a different pattern to the colors on the underside of its body. If snakes did not spend 90 percent of their time underground, this might be an easy way to monitor individual hognoses - find one, flip it over, compare it to a "field guide of the snakes of Sibley." Then if Sibley kept records of when someone spotted one of our hognoses, we could go - "aaaah, that's George, we caught him first in 2006 near the pond, then earlier this year near the JMG garden, and now he is at the salt playa." But we don't keep such records!
The photographer's assistant then placed a baby spadefoot toad in front of the hognose. Hognoses specialize in toads. Most snakes do not dig their own holes, but hognoses do - they can locate a toad by "scent" and then dig down to where the toad is buried (using their nose as a shovel to pry down into the soil.) Sibley summer camp kids performed an experiment years ago to see if snakes had a wide range of smell. They did not react when placed near strong odors such as ammonia, crushed juniper leaves, perfume, or soap. Since hognose snakes will eat baby mice in captivity, they probably can detect their presence by "taste," as well. A snake's tongue constantly flickers in and out. Each time it goes inside, the Jacobsen's organs register the "taste-smell."
Toads mate in playas and barditches. The eggs hatch in 24 hours, and in some toad species the "toadlet" can hop away in 11-12 days. Thousands, even millions, will leave a playa almost simultaneously. One year, local "herpers" (snake lovers) found 8 hognose snakes around one playa during such a mass dispersal. Each hognose had a toadlet in its mouth.
Toads spend 95 percent of their life underground. Toads specialize in termites. After a rain, grassland mudtube termites swarm. After mating, the males begin to die, while the female termites dig underground. Toads will eat their body weight in termites during their 2-3 days of emergence and then dig underground. Some species can survive at least two years, waiting for the next rain to fill the playas with rainwater again.
The toad began hopping away after it was placed on the ground. As it went by the hognose, the hognose turned to follow.
The snake moved too quickly and in the wrong direction and went past it, but in the photograph it appears the snake has his gaze fixed in the right direction!
The hognose "nosed" the toad after its tongue touched it. The toad chose to "freeze" ("maybe he won't see me!)
The hognose struck.
Each section of a snake's jaw works separately. The tiny sharp teeth are "walked" down the prey, slowly pulling it into the throat.
The toad has almost been swallowed. Hognose snakes have rear fangs with a mild venom that "sedates" the toad so it does not struggle. If a person sticks their finger down a big hognose snake's throat, the venom will mildly numb the skin.
All in!
The hognose snake in the above photo and several other snakes were brought to the Sibley Center by the above mentioned "photographer's assistant," James, a high school student volunteering as part of a program sponsored by the Abell-Hangar and Greathouse Foundations with the local schools. A rural resident, he had become fascinated with snakes and kept some of the ones he had caught in terrariums.
James had just caught this black-headed snake (and it is an adult.) Black-headed snakes can sometimes be found by turning over boards, rocks, or even litter on the ground - especially after a rain. The species eats centipedes, scorpions, and spiders.
Like the hognose snake, desert kingsnakes are also diurnal (foraging in the day.) Desert kings are generalists - we have observed them eating - a hognose snake, a whiptail lizard, bird eggs, bird nestlings, baby mice, and longnose snakes.
Blind snakes are fascinating. This adult is skinnier than the lead in a pencil. Blind snakes are partners in two fascinating symbiotic relationships.
Blind snakes often live with our local species of army ant and eat diseased eggs, larvae, and pupae. Our army ants "march" during nights with no moon, moving their colony to better foraging sites. Hundreds of thousands of tiny ants form a column two inches wide and dozens of feet long when they move their colony. If a person happens to witness such an event, that person might be lucky enough to see a blind snake moving along with them. The ants rarely bother the snake, for it performs a service for them.
Blind snakes have also been found in screech owl nests. The owls capture the snake and release it in the nest. The snakes eat the nits of lice. Screech owls with blind snakes in their nest raise more young to maturity than do the owls with nests with no blind snakes. The eyes of blind snakes only register light and dark, and the species prefers to avoid the light, immediately burrowing into loose sand, leaves, or even a plant, if exposed to light.
Snakes like water - a drink and a refreshing bath is always pleasant. A big bullsnake, such as this five footer, might also remain motionless in water wating for a prey animal to come to get a drink.
It is unlikely that the bullsnake was interested in the
mosquitofish swimming about between his head and tail. Bullsnakes eat
rodents, baby rabbits, and occasionally bird eggs and young, but a tiny
gambusia would hardly be a mouth full!
In closeup, the bull snake appears to be blowing bubbles - which makes a person wonder if snakes play!
Longnose snakes are rarely seen. They are most often seen within an hour or two of a rain. They specialize in lizards, and lizards remain in their holes after a rain because their prey insects are still wet and not moving around. The longnosed snakes find the lizards in their holes. Longnosed snakes will also hunt during the night time hours.
Many longnosed snakes first curl up in this pattern. Notice how the tail is sticking up above the body. They vibrate the tail like a rattlesnake. If leaves are nearby, it might sound a little like a rattlesnake, but it is more probable that they move the tail to distract a predator. A predator often strikes/bites/pecks at a moving target.
Since the longnosed snake is red black and yellow many people think it might be a coral snake, but coral snakes are not found west of San Angelo. They do have sharp little teeth and can draw blood. Notice how the snake is pressed to the ground - partly to prevent casting a shadow, so a predator can not see its outline. Snakes with blotchy patterns often freeze when they feel threatened.
Longnosed snakes spend a lot of time digging and poking around in leaf litter, clumps of grass, and other likely places for lizards to hide.
Most folks only see diamondback rattlesnakes in this fashion – stretched out on the side of roads. Most West Texans stop and kill them by running them over several times. Many folks believe rattlesnakes are "evil" but check out this essay for a story about opposing viewpoints.)
In a closeup, a person can see the "heat sensing pits" between the nostrils and eyes. The photograher used a telephoto lens and was safely sitting in a vehicle.
A rattle is added each time the snake sheds, and a snake sheds everytime he grows. Some snakes can shed as many as 4-5 times a year. The rattles often are broken off, so as a result the folktale that a person can tell the age of a rattlesnake by the number of rattles is only a myth. Another myth that many folks believe is that Mojave Rattlesnakes live east of the Pecos. Read this story to learn why that is impossible.
Rattlesnakes are most active when the temperature is between 70 and 90 degrees. During the summer they are usually more active at night. Diamondbacks den together, so on warm days in winter, some will emerge to bask in the sun. A person never ever puts their hand or foot where they can not see, and if possible, never walks through tall grass or weeds. A rattlesnake only strikes half its body length, so as long as a person is at least 4 foot from a snake, they are safe. If you are closer – you must freeze and not move until it moves away!