Hognose snakes
Hognose snakes don't move very fast, they're they only get about three feet long for females and between a foot and a half and two feet for males.
They don't get very big and
they're named of course after their upturned snout. Their snout is curved up at
the end and they use that nose for digging.
They'll dig around in the dirt
and leaves to find their favorite food which is frogs and toads. Technically,
they are venomous, they have a very mild toxin in them that's venomous to frogs
and toads which is their primary diet.
The hognose snake is pretty well
known for its defense mechanism, when it's intimidated the first thing it does
is stretch out this loose skin around its neck to try to look like a cobra
and if that doesn't scare away the predator then the hognose snake will roll
over on twists back open up its mouth and stick out its tongue and play dead.
They will sometimes even defecate
on themselves or bleed from their mouths by popping a blood vessel and they put
on a very elaborate death display and they do anything they can to convince
that predator not to eat them anymore.
Hognoses are relatively short
snakes spread among three genera one from North America one from South America
and one from Madagascar the three genera are not closely related but they all
have convergently evolved to be amazing diggers by making use of the most
unusual of shovels their faces.
Their genus name Heterodon means
different teeth, as these snakes have quite unusual teeth. Most snakes have fangs at the front of their
face but hognoses have their fangs situated further into their mouths more
towards their throat. It helps them secure their slithery prey and prevents
them from escaping.
Most venomous snakes like vipers
have highly developed venom-injecting fangs at the front of their mouths. Their
strategy is to kill their prey quickly and then swallow.
Rear-fanged snakes generally
aren't very venomous, so they need a series of backward-facing teeth to grasp
their prey and move it towards their throat. As they inject it with venom in a
way this kind of snake is the only one that chews, does use a little bit of venom
on their prey but it doesn't affect humans in any sort of significant way.
They're harmless to predators. They've
evolved to resemble rattlesnakes, this is a form of baits and mimicry where a
harmless prey species mimics a dangerous species to deter predators.
All snakes have a terminal scale
on their face and this one has, in particular, is kind of hardened and
shovel-shaped used to dig through the ground.
Hognoses tend to live in areas
with gravelly or sandy soil the ideal habitat for digging. When looking for a safe place to hide they
move their face from side to side while making undulating movements with their
body quickly burrowing into the ground.
Their whole body is lined with
bands of muscles that they use constantly to dig into the ground with every
movement. They make it like a series of concentric contractions. Using their
whole body to dig, digging helps them hide from predators as well as take cover
from the brutal sun in the prairies. It also gives them a safe place to lay
their eggs and most importantly their favorite prey are other burrowing animals
like toads and lizards, hognoses take the hunt underground.
Toads often puff themselves to
make themselves harder to eat but hognoses use their rear fangs to pop them
like a balloon.
Despite resembling venomous snakes these are dangerless noodles but they have another line of defense, the
power of acting hognoses, they are also drama queens.
They will hiss and strike but not
bite at worst. they're experts of fantasies,
they like to play dead. But before they do, they might just put on one heck of
a show excreting all of their bodily fluids and squirming as though they're in
the worst pain. The plan is to make the predator think that the snake is sick
or rotten making it lose interest, if that doesn't work they'll vomit their
food in a last-ditch attempt to gross out their predators.
What makes the snake different
than cobras or rattlesnakes is that it does have small teeth that are curved
backward like hooks just like all snakes do except for egg-eating snakes they're
the one exception but in addition to those smaller teeth they have enlarged
posterior maxillary teeth.
Hognose snakes physically chew
their prey, snakes with this tooth structure including hognose snakes, mangrove
snakes, false water cobras, and a few others are considered pistol glyphs.
These snakes are highly specialized eaters and they prefer to eat amphibians in
the wild specifically frogs and toads.
No comments:
Please do not enter any spam message in the link.