Intro

The laws of nature in the animal world ecosystem of our world has developed in such a way that leads to the struggle for survival.

Snakes devote their whole life to this fight.

Among all animal species, only snakes have the ability to survive on land, at sea and even fly in the air.

Ball of snakes

The expression ball of snakes evokes an association with witchcraft or something terrible.

In nature you can find tangles of snakes, and this is due to the beginning of the mating season.

A cluster of intertwined snake bodies is nothing more than a snake wedding.

By smelling, Mel’s find a female and wrapped themselves around her, forming the unthinkable interweaving of flexible bodies with mini heads.

With the advent of spring, after the snow melts, the largest community of snakes in the world wake up.

Narcisse snake dens are located four miles north of the town of Narcisse in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Here is the world’s largest concentration of garter snakes.

Garter snakes belong to the genus of snakes from the family of the calibre T. they are widespread on the territory of the North American continent, from Canada to Central America, where they lead a daily lifestyle.

These reptiles come together twice a year, once in the spring and once before hibernation.

Spring awakens the lair tens of thousands of snakes, sliding along each other, crawl out of their shelters to the surface of the earth, forming a real living carpet.

Male garter snakes emerge earlier in the spring from the winter shelters and begin to look for females.

Females creep out one at a time, so when the next bride appears on the surface, hundreds of males are expecting her.

Females have larger bodies than males, but males are much greater and number.

The mating season comes and the snakes begin their ritual dance.

More than 100,000 snakes take part in this crucial process.

One female is looked after by a huge number of males.

The female, ready for pairing, exudes a characteristic odor, a pheromone attracting males.

Several hundred males gather around one female, forming a huge ball.

They constantly moved, making characteristic hissing, rustling sounds.

Snakes are literally everywhere on the earth: on ledges, on rocks and on tree branches.

Tangles roll up and down the cliffs.

Imagine the level of competition.

Hundreds of male snakes, attracted by pheromones, flock to a single female.

The air is full of a slightly audible hiss.

Choose me.

Every male wants to meet a female.

He must be strong and, most importantly, persistent.

And only one in this big tangle manages to mate with her.

The method of such competition creates stronger offspring.

But as soon as one of the candidates succeeds in pairing, the smell ceases in the ball spreads in search of the next bride.

The fertilized female is in a hurry to get away.

She will find herself a secluded place where later in the summer she will immediately give birth to forty to fifty serpents.

The numerical predominance of males ensures that each female garter snake will be fertilized with an only half an hour after she leaves wintering.

This is very important because summer is short in early fertilization ensures the appearance of offspring before the onset of the winter cold.

With the onset of autumn, garter snakes in masses return to the caves, which allows you to catch a glimpse of them again before winter comes.

Although the autumn movement is less impressive than the spring, residents of the neighborhood breathe a sigh of relief until the next snake apocalypse, which could be more than eight months away.

Tree flying snakes

In the jungle of South and Southeast Asia, there are five species of tree flying snakes that can cover significant distances through the air.

There is still no consensus among scientists how snakes begin to fly.

You can only imagine those terrible circumstances in the distant past that made them fly without wings.

Today very little is known about flying snakes, but we will try to get to know them better.

Tree flying snakes.

Adapted to life in the crowns of trees.

They have a relatively thin body, reaching links from 23 inches to 5 feet.

They crawl quickly and deftly not only along branches but also along vertical surfaces.

They have more than 400 ribs and they move wherever they want, high above the ground.

The color of these snakes is bright and colorful, masking them among the leaves, branches, vines, lichens and flowers lit by the sun’s rays.

But tree snakes attract attention not only in appearance, but also for their amazing ability to so called fly.

It is very difficult for snakes that live in trees to transfer their body from branch to branch, from tree to tree, especially if distances between them are large.

Therefore, they prefer to descend from trees from a height of 50 to 60 feet, flying through the air.

So how does a snake manage to fly?

This is a Paradise tree snake, the most common flying snake.

Its length reaches 4 feet.

They inhabit the rainforests, belong to the family of the colubrid Ii and are not poisonous.

Paradise tree snakes leap into the air using its body as a spring.

It slides to the end of the branch, hangs in the shape of the letter J and swings with the help of the lower body.

Then, having pushed off part of the tail, it rushes into the air and stretches out smoothly, planning to land on a branch on another tree located below.

During its flight, the round body of a flying snake becomes very flat, like a cobra.

Inflating its hood, this snake spreads out its ribs, stretches the skin and presses its back to the stomach, turning into a flat ribbon.

This new shape helps the snake, which has gained inertia in the jump, to reflect the air flows from the sides and from below, which creates a lift similar to the wing of an airplane.

Their body becomes an aerodynamic surface.

To decrease their speed, they bend their body in the form of the letter S. swimming in the air, the snake makes wave-like movements as if in water and holds it still strictly upward, spinning it from side to side for balance.

Technically, these snakes are more so gliding, since they are using the speed of free fall from a tree, in the contraction of the muscles of the body, to catch ascending air currents.

But the Paradise tree snake is not only capable of planning a flight.

They can still change direction in the air when they notice an unexpected obstacle.

With a body about three feet long, it can fly through the air up to 300 feet.

When the snake lands on a branch, it forms a hook to grab on to the tree.

While landing, they rush into the depths of the branches.

The amazing ability of the snake to plan while in air helps them survive easily, move from tree to tree, escape from predators, as well as hunt for prey.

The flight of snakes is a very exciting sight and the beauty of their shape, grace and attractiveness of movements fascinate observers.

Tentacled snakes

Deep in the hot, humid rainforest, in the muddy waters of swamps and Southeast Asia, tentacled snakes live and hunt.

The unusual freshwater snake is already curious because it has on its head a pair of tentacles similar to horns.

These two small cone-shaped outgrowths equipped with muscles are mostly used as sensors with which the tentacled snake receives information about what is happening around it.

These snakes live underwater but breathe lightly and are forced to rise to the surface from time to time to breathe air.

They are not big lovers of leaving their water abode, but sometimes they can get on driftwood or other objects protruding from the water.

Tentacled snakes are good hunters.

They learned a completely unique fishing technique in preparation for the hunt: they fold their bodies in a loop and patiently wait for the fish to swim as close as possible.

As you know, a fish, with its quick reflex response, only needs a few fractions of a second, which is enough to avoid the teeth of a predator.

As soon as the lateral lines located on both sides of the body, the so called fish ears, pick up the slightest fluid movement around, they send a special signal to the muscles.

As a result, the body of the fish instantly bends in the form of the letter C in the direction opposite of the incoming sound.

This movement allows the fish to swim very quickly away from danger, starting almost unconsciously.

Therefore, the snake, when the victim is nearby, makes a sharp movement, not with its head but with its tail.

Water vibrations act on the victim, triggering a reaction.

In the next split-second, something elusive to the human eye happens: almost instantly, the fish finds itself in the teeth of a water snake.

Tentacled snakes, which had previously calculated the movement of the fish, purposefully sent water vibrations from the right side.

Responding to danger, the fish rushes right into the mouths of the cunning hunter before throwing the snakes once its pupils, and with a sharp movement of its head, captures the deceived victim.

This unique fishing technique of tentacled snakes allows it to thrive underwater without fins.

Tentacled snakes are poisonous, but the strength of their poison is only enough to neutralize the caught fish.

For humans, it is not dangerous, and the fangs are small and set too deep to cause any harm to humans.

That’s all for today.

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