A video of a snake playing dead has surfaced online, thought to be unusual for the Texas indigo snake.
In the clip—first published online in mid-November—amateur herpetologist Eric Johnson of Mission, Texas, filmed himself grabbing the harmless reptile, which can reach lengths of more than six feet. Suddenly the snake freezes and gapes its mouth, appearing to fake death.
“I didn’t realize they had that behavior,” says Johnson in the original video. “I am dumbfounded.” (Also see “The Living Dead: Animals That Pretend to Go Belly-Up.”)
Herpetologist Toby Hibbitts of Texas A&M University confirmed that the video shows a death-feigning Texas indigo snake, noting that he has personally seen indigo snakes fake death before.
Patrick Gregory of Canada’s University of Victoria, an expert on snake behavior, agreed that the video shows a snake pretending to be dead. “It wasn’t a full-blown display, but it had important elements, [such as] a contorted body and an open mouth.”
The video marks the first time Gregory has seen film of the behavior in indigo snakes, though he notes that in 2010, a researcher reported death-feigning in the closely related eastern indigo snake. New reports of snake death-feigning are frequently added to the scientific literature, he adds: “It’s an occasional behavior for lots of species, and a [common] behavior for some,” he says.
Comments
Post a Comment