From the way it immediately returns to that back left corner, I’m willing to bet that’s a momma trying to protect her lil’ snakey babies. The crazy-seeming striking did exactly what it was supposed to: scare away the big, blundering threat to her young’uns.
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My brother had one swim at him while he was snorkeling in a FL spring, but it only head-bumped him. But all the important venomous snakes in America are pit vipers (as I explained to an African guy throwing rocks at a black rat snake) and they are thick and slow moving, although they have a much faster strike than a cobra.
As I was saying about snakes and their leaping ability, check out this timber rattlesnake who is completely invisible until he becomes a heat seeking missile with fangs. I am reminded of a hike my father and I took where we found ourselves in a sandy area of river bottom where the smell of snakes hung like fog. Nobody had to say what it that smell was, that knowledge is your DNA.
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Somebody should probably issue a citation for striking under the influence.
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It’s reported that a French biologist kept and studied adders for eight years without ever discovering they were venomous. (I still wouldn’t want to be bitten by one, but one benefit of living in England is that that is the worst snake we have to worry about.)
Adders are also viviparous.
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Would they also be a member of the Elapidae family with the American coral snakes, which are also very weak biters?
They’re vipers.
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like this…
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Okay, I’d best stop watching this now and go to bed; its a work day tomorrow…
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It does get better with repeated viewing, doesn’t it ?
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Not to mention that all true snakes are deaf IIRC. If you find a legless lizard (“glass snake”) you will notice that it has visible ears and eyelids.
nope nope nope nope nope
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They are deaf by mammalian standards but their inner ears still exist, they just pick up lower frequency vibrations from different sources. @anon68287401 won’t get far with a campaign to buy hearing aids for snakes until someone can find something to hook them onto or into.
In the UK we have legless lizards called colloquially “slow-worms” (worm as in old English for serpent). They are quite charming little creatures, but I haven’t managed to persuade any to inhabit the compost pit of my current house. A video of a slow-worm approaching its prey would be about as interesting as watching paint dry; they creep up very, very slowly indeed.
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Looks like this snake just wanted to leave the place?
@anon68287401 that is gold. BRILLIANT!
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Ahh, high frequency hearing loss, like grandma!
American legless lizards move all right in the grass, but the lack the flexibility of a real snake and I doubt they have any useful amount of climbing ability. In comparison, our native rat snakes easily climb trees and I saw one eat a squirrel in a tree.
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