Description: War Thunder is a next generation military MMO game dedicated to...
Summer residents and tourists getting out into the forests trumpet: “There are more snakes”, “Reptiles literally swarm under our feet”, “We are afraid to let children and dogs into the forest”. What can cause snake aggression? What to do if the snake still bites? In what case can a fatal outcome occur? - the journalists of MK-Estonia asked Alexander Ognev, a naturalist, a former poison extractor in the serpentarium, and Dmitry Vasiliev, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences.
One room in the apartment of Alexander Ognev is completely given over to enclosures, terrariums, and aquariums. Some snakes - about 70 pieces. He is especially proud of non-poisonous snakes, which disguise themselves as poisonous ones with their “shirts”.
What poisonous snakes should be feared? - I'm interested in a naturalist.
- The only poisonous snake in our latitudes is the common viper. It is also called moth and swamp viper, says Alexander Ognev. - Among all the snakes in the world, she has the most extensive range - the area of distribution: from Great Britain and northern Spain to Lake Baikal.
"Already - smooth, viper - velvet"
- Can a viper be confused with one of the non-venomous snakes?
In the same territory, an ordinary one lives. It is black or dark grey. At the base of his head he has two spots - yellow, gray, white, orange or pink flowers. There may be snakes without spots. Sometimes they are so dark gray that the spots merge with the general background and are not visible. The snake has smoother scales, so it shines in the sun. And the viper is like velvet, on each scale it has a scallop.
Already - a swift snake, when threatened, curls up into a tight ball and hisses. If he sees that the danger has not passed, he can pretend to be dead. At the same time, it emits a terrible smell, reminiscent of garlic. For this, he has special prianal glands.
Vipers and snakes prefer a different biotope - habitat, vipers - the edges of swamps and clearings, too - areas near rivers and lakes, - says, in turn, Dmitry Vasiliev.
- What places should be avoided in order not to meet the viper?
- In the spring they are close to wintering grounds. And wintering places for vipers are quite massive, - says Dmitry Vasiliev. - Thus, in the spring in a small clearing there can be a lot of snakes. And then, after molting and mating, they spread.
According to studies, females usually migrate not far, up to 800 meters, while males can crawl up to 11 kilometers.
In autumn they crawl back to the places where they spent the previous winter.
In the spring, when there is little sun, vipers can be found in some open places. And in the summer they can be seen early in the morning and in the evening. Usually meetings occur at the interface between the environments: a swamp - the edge of the forest, a mowed part under the power line - the edge of the forest, garbage on suburban area- garden. Vipers do not like just a forest or an open field, they are there only as migrants. But the permanent places where they spend the night are associated with shelters, these should be shaded places where you can hide - burrows, blockages of branches, and so on.
- that is, in dense forest no vipers?
- They need to be able to warm up somewhere in the open. If this is a forest, then there should be a clearing nearby.
Do not attack yourself and you will not be attacked
- Is it true that the viper does not attack a person first?
- First of all, I want to note that we have a very safe nature. It greatly discourages our compatriots, - Alexander Ognev notes. - Therefore, I am not at all surprised that in Cambodia, sea urchins prick only tourists from countries former USSR, because it would never occur to any other to step on sea urchin. Or stick your fingers into coral crevices to see if moray eels are hiding there. A huge number of dangerous animals live to the south. Take the same Turkey, where there is not only Poisonous snakes, but also poisonous spiders, fish, jellyfish. In the middle lane, one should take it as a common rule: do not go barefoot and in shorts into the forest. And the worst thing is not a viper, but a tick that can reward you with a whole bunch of diseases.
And the death rate from the viper is very low. She does not chase people, she herself never attacks. This is a rather cowardly creature; in case of danger, she will try to escape. The only thing is, if you come across a pregnant female, it will be hard for her to quickly disappear, she will curl up into a ball, begin to hiss and defend herself. What are our people doing? They begin to beat her with a slipper in the face, the snake, respectively, bites them on the leg. Then they say: "A snake attacked me." In fact, they attacked the viper.
I know a few places where they coexist perfectly locals and vipers.
The snakes have their own "patch", they do not leave this territory, there is an excellent food base, full of rodents and frogs.
And the villagers, accordingly, do not climb into their snake "state", do not disturb the reptiles.
You have to be careful when picking berries and mushrooms. Before stepping into the grass, move a stick along it. But you don't have to hit the bush with a stick. There were many cases when mushroom pickers accidentally picked up a snake, raised it along with a stick to their face, then were horrified: "A viper jumped on me." She does not jump 1.5 meters! The viper can make a throw upwards of a maximum of 10–15 centimeters. Sneakers, high boots or boots can serve as protection. The snake does not bite through them, the length of its teeth is 4–5 millimeters.
If the viper sees a person, it will follow him. Before he steps on her, she will announce her presence - she will hiss, - says, in turn, Dmitry Vasiliev. - If the viper is heated, you won’t even see it, it will run away so fast, only the grass will rustle. Bites happen if they try to play with the viper, pick it up, or accidentally step on or sit on it.
What time of day are snakes active?
- They usually go out half an hour before dawn, take up positions where you can bask in the sun. They “sunbathe” until 9 am, and when they warm up, they go into shelter, says Alexander Ognev. - The snake can be seen during the day. These are the so-called fattening snakes that are in search of food. The second peak of snake activity begins after four in the afternoon and lasts until sunset. My latest find of a viper was around 22:00.
No harnesses and immobility!
- What to do if the viper still bit?
- Firstly, when you go into the forest, you must remember that you are an enemy there and that you are going to someone else's territory. And you have to dress appropriately. Secondly, you need to put at least suprastin in your pocket. The fact is that the danger from a bite, according to my observations, is more due to an allergic reaction to the poison. The poison is protein, and different people they react to it differently. Fatal outcome usually associated with anaphylaxis. Swelling of the mucous membranes of the mouth and nasopharynx can develop within two minutes - and the person dies.
I have no allergy to viper venom, some of my fellow snake catchers had swollen face, nasopharynx, someone had difficulty breathing. To prevent this from happening, you need to take some kind of antihistamine drug with you into the forest: tavegil, claritin, tsetrin, pipolfen. For example, I always had Diphenhydramine with me. This medicine, in addition to everything else, also has a powerful sedative effect - it relaxes and anesthetizes, which is important when bitten by a snake.
If you not Small child, and an adult or teenager, a viper bite is unlikely to be fatal for you.
Yes, it hurts, you will hurt. Teenagers or women can spend a week in bed. Men, as more massive creatures, cope with the bite of a viper in three to four days.
(Alexander Ognev knows what he is saying. 91 times poisonous teeth dug into him. 20 years of work in the serpentarium affected. Plus, when catching, the herpetologist was attached to: green rattlesnake, muzzle, steppe viper, Caucasian viper, common viper, bamboo keffiyeh, etc.)
- How right are those who are trying to suck the poison out of the wound?
- It has more of a psychological effect. The lesson is not bad, here you should not forget about the placebo (from the Latin placebo, a substance without obvious medicinal properties used as medicinal product, the therapeutic effect of which is associated with the patient's belief in the effectiveness of the drug. - approx. ed.). Of course, you won’t suck out any poison there, but your mouth has occupied something - and has already distracted from the perception of the bite.
In the French Legion, for example, fighters are given a special fixed syringe, with which you can suck out snake venom, says Dmitry Vasiliev. - It is believed that in this way you can remove somewhere 10-15% of the poison. But it should be noted that snake venom contains a special enzyme - hyaluronidase, which instantly removes poison from the bite point. And it is better not to do any traumatic effects, in particular incisions, treatment with some kind of chemical agents such as potassium permanganate. Because of all this, you can subsequently limp all your life, lose a finger, and so on.
- Someone with a snake bite tries to apply a tourniquet. This is right?
- You don't have to do that. It’s just better if the poison dissipates throughout the body, says Alexander Ognev. - It's bullshit that poison can be stopped somewhere. One of the enzymes contained in viper venom causes tissue necrosis. If you apply a tourniquet, the chance of necrosis will increase, gangrene will set in - and you will have to amputate the part that you applied the tourniquet to. Any intoxication is measured by a milligram of poison per kilogram of the weight of the bitten.
I believe that with a snake bite, the whole body should “work”, and not the part where the snake bit you.
Let the poison dissipate. General poisoning will be more noticeable, but in general it will pass much faster and easier. I had a record - four hours.
When bitten by a snake, most guides advise you to remain still. I did the opposite. First, I drank alcohol, alcohol has a wonderful property, it works as a vasodilator. Secondly, I kept moving. I was bitten by a snake left hand, I intensively worked with a brush, the same way when blood is taken from a person's vein. My hand swelled up very quickly, dizziness set in. Two hours later, severe itching began, and this is usually a signal that the poisoning has ended, and the body has begun to fight. Four hours later, the swelling began to subside.
But what about the recommendation to fix the bitten hand in a bent position with a tissue thrown over the neck?
- This must be kept in mind when you sleep. On the first night after being bitten, many cannot sleep due to severe pain. Most often, a snake bites a person in the hand. It swells so much that it hurts even to touch. At night, it is necessary to build a pyramid from pillows and arrange the bitten hand 15–20 centimeters above the heart, if it is lower, it will be much more painful due to the flow of lymph and blood.
To drink or not to drink?
- Do you need to drink more fluids when bitten by a snake?
- This is true. I went through various options, watermelon comes first, followed by beer and coffee. All of them have good diuretic properties. If you are in the forest, make tea and throw in a handful of lingonberry leaves. Lingonberries also have a pronounced diuretic property. The fact is that the poison is excreted from the body only through the kidneys. So you have to write, write and write again. And for this you need to constantly fill the body with water.
- Why do they say: in case of a snake bite, in no case do not take alcohol?
- Our people, for the most part, do not know how to drink alcohol in small portions, and having fairly taken it on their chests, they lose touch with reality, become disoriented.
For myself, empirically, I found the right dose, this is 50-70 grams of vodka.
No more, alcohol should work as a superficial vasodilator. Also I used fresh water with dry wine. An acidic environment disinfects, you never know what E. coli you pick up from a local reservoir.
- There are those who apply a half of a cut onion to the bite site. Does it have any effect?
- It's useless to do it. There is no longer any poison at the bite site, says Dmitry Vasiliev. - There is such a demonstrative experience. In a guinea pig, spots were shaved on both sides to bare skin and poison, tinted with methylene blue, was injected at one point, and saline solution with methylene blue was injected into the other. The area of the spot where the poison was injected was a hundred times larger than the area where the saline solution was injected. That is, the conductors in the poison instantly take him away from the bite point. He "flies" to the nearest lymph node.
If there is no allergic component, the viper's venom is not strong enough to cause the death of an adult. But if within an hour after the bite a strong headache, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from the mucous membranes, clouding and loss of consciousness, a feeling of flashing light in the eyes - the person must be urgently taken to the hospital.
How to secure your backyard
How does viper venom affect cats and dogs?
- Approximately the same as for a person. Sensitive to snake venom dogs large breeds Malosskaya group, - says Dmitry Vasiliev. - Most often, dogs get a bite in the area of \u200b\u200bthe nasolabial triangle, that is, when they sniff a snake. They quickly develop swelling, and it can be difficult for dogs to swallow food or water. And, for example, hunting dogs and dachshunds quite easily tolerate snake bites. In cops and drathaars, symptoms of poisoning spontaneously disappear after six hours, but this does not exclude further complications associated with the kidneys. Large breed dogs may experience heart murmurs, wheezing, and pulmonary edema. Treatment for dogs is the same as for humans. In the hospital, they are injected with anti-snake serum. And then they produce symptomatic treatment: if the pressure drops, they raise it, “drip” antihistamines and painkillers.
Can a snake sting while in water?
- The Viper swims, and quite well. Another thing is that she does not live where there are large bodies of water. And she easily swims across small rivers, - says Alexander Ognev. - In the river, if you grab it with your hand, of course, it can attack.
But this is not her native element, in the river she thinks how to get away from you.
I know for sure two cases when a snake bit a person in the water while trying to throw it away, - says Dmitry Vasiliev. - This is despite the fact that the snake must take a certain position in order to bite. To throw forward the front third of the body, she needs some kind of solid support. And water is not very suitable for this. If someone mentions a snake in the water, then this is most likely already. They swim very willingly.
How can you protect your garden from snakes?
- In the morning, at 8 o'clock, when the sun is just beginning to bake, go around your territory, carefully examine everything. Usually snakes are heated and are motionless. In order not to meet the viper in your country house - make the hygiene of the site and remove construction garbage- says Dmitry Vasiliev. - If you see a shedding snake skin, recultivate these places, fill in all the holes.
It is impossible for the garden plot to have deposits of firewood, heaps of boards, pieces of roofing material that remained after the repair, - explains, in turn, Alexander Ognev. - Neatly stacked firewood is of little interest to anyone. But heaped, rotten boards and heaps of garbage - perfect place for shelter of rodents, lizards. A viper can also climb there and will feel completely safe. Mow regularly around garden plot- and he will lose attractiveness for lizards, shrews, voles, vipers.
Clickable 1920px
All the time I thought that a boa constrictor (or some other snake) CANNOT SWALLOW a person purely for physiological reasons. All films about it are fiction and horror films. But what does it turn out to be? Here is yesterday's news.
In Russia, a drunk can freeze, but it turned out that in hot India it is also dangerous to get completely drunk. A man lying under a degree on the street near a store in Indian state Kerala, ate a huge man-eating python.
A snake that swallowed a man. Photo: India, Kerala.
The incident happened in the Indian state of Kerala, which, like Goa, attracts a large number of tourists to its coast.
In India, a careless man decided to have a pleasant evening, but he didn’t bring alcohol home and drank the purchased drinks right next to the liquor store. In the same place, the drunkard settled down for the night.
And in the morning, local residents found a swollen snake on the threshold of a shop. It turned out that the python crawled past the liquor store and saw the "food". He strangled the man, and then swallowed his victim. After such a hearty "dinner", the reptile could not crawl away and lay down on the site of the emergency.
Subsequently, the swollen snake was discovered by local residents, according to LOTD.
This example can be an edification to the numerous tourists who go to India on vacation and often forget about the sense of proportion in relation to alcohol and other relaxing substances there.
And here is such a case:
A huge python, according to the stories of the children, unexpectedly grabbed their friend when they were collecting fallen mangoes in the garden. The snake quickly wrapped itself around the child, tightly squeezing his arms and legs. The boy was so frightened that he did not even scream or cry.
“The python squeezed him harder until the boy closed his eyes and threw back his head,” said an eyewitness to the tragedy, 11-year-old Cave. - I realized that he was dead or unconscious. Then the snake opened its mouth wide and began to swallow him all at once, starting from the head. For three hours, the children silently watched what was happening, afraid to move or call for help.
Later, the police and snake experts found no trace of the tragedy - the child and his clothes disappeared along with the snake. On the crumpled grass, only a trace remained, leading to the spring. Herpentologists explained that the African python needed water to better digest its prey.
According to experts, this is the first case of cannibalism for this species of snakes. The python, apparently, woke up after hibernation and was very hungry.
A reptile swollen from a human body was found nearby in the jungle, it could not crawl far. The snake was killed and immediately cut, but the boy could not be saved - he died of suffocation.
Another case:
It turns out that the plot of the film “Anaconda” has a real basis and in our sinful world there are giant reptiles that can swallow a person whole.
Usually, snakes prefer to attack smaller creatures that they can easily swallow, but despite this, there are many documented cases when these reptiles swallowed livestock, dogs, and even baby hippos.
Unfortunately, the diet of these predators is not limited to such a meager set of dishes, and creeping reptiles are not averse to tasting human flesh if possible. It's hard to believe, but there really are giant giants on Earth, for which a person is just prey.
Four friends: Jose Ronaldo. Fernando Contaro, Miguel Orvaro and Sebastian Forte went to the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil for camping and fishing. Fishing went well, and alcohol flowed like a river. Returning from the river, friends noticed the absence of the fourth member of their cheerful company Jose Ronaldo dentist. The tipsy fishermen were looking for their drinking companion before dark, but Jose, as if through the ground, fell through.
The next day, in a cheerful and high spirits, they went in search, in the hope of finding their friend lying drunk in some ditch. In the late afternoon they found his torn clothes.
“At first we thought it was a robbery: the ground around was dug up, as if someone was fighting on it,” says one of the fishermen, Fernando Contaro. “My heart was relieved, because if he was attacked by a person, and not a wild animal, then he could survive!”.
After examining the place of struggle, they found a deep footprint in the ground leading to the forest. Experienced hunter Sebastian Forte immediately said that a snake had left him ... a very large snake, at least 10 meters long. The sun was already setting and the men decided to return to the camp.
The next morning, the men followed the snake trail. What they found at the end of their journey shocked them: in front of them lay a giant anaconda with an incredibly bloated body. Miguel pressed the python's head to the ground with a stick, and Fernando shot the reptile twice in the head with a revolver. Anaconda was towed to the camp, where they cut open her stomach and removed the dentist's body, which had already begun to be digested.
If a snake swallows a person, which happens relatively rarely, then by all means - only for the purpose of “eating a little”. Here one could quote a lengthy instruction recently published on the Internet on what to do if you are swallowed by a python or anaconda. The main idea is that you need to give the snake more to swallow its legs, and then, with a sharp movement of a sharp knife, cut its head from the side from the inside. Where to get a sharp knife and what to do if they started swallowing you from the head - this instruction does not tell.
The only difficulty in swallowing a person should be caused by the shoulders. An adult broad-shouldered man can hardly be swallowed ...
The snake's jaw can certainly move apart, but still up to a certain limit. Only possible way- if the snake contrives to swallow a person lying on its side (or itself turns its head in such a way that the victim enters it sideways).
So the anaconda may well swallow a child, a woman, a medium-sized narrow-shouldered man ...
Case three. Why shouldn't snakes eat hippos?
The answer is simple, hippos have too thick skin that more than one snake is simply unable to digest.
(The spectacle is impartial, think twice before you look)
Video: a stupid python that ate a baby hippo, crawled with this carcass for a week, terribly hungry and forced to expel this delicacy from itself.
And now just curious information about snakes on this topic.
Bernard Grzimek.
From the book "Animals are my life."
Can a snake swallow a person?
“There is no doubt that the ancients meant by their dragons our modern giant snakes. The striking size of these animals, their considerable strength, and the general fear of snakes in general, make very understandable the exaggerations of which the ancients are guilty.<…>Over time, human fantasy endowed dragons even richer, and from the incomprehensible tales of oriental people gradually grew images for which reasonable person searched in vain for the originals, because information about the giant snakes themselves was almost lost. All the more stubbornly did uneducated people hold on to the favorite description of a large dragon or a serpent-gorynych, spewed to the ground to the death of the whole world ”(A. E. Bram)
A giant twenty-meter or even thirty-meter snake, hiding on a bough, lies in wait for its prey. From a blow to the top of her stone-hard head, a man taken by surprise falls almost unconscious to the ground, and the snake rushes at him with a lightning throw and wraps its rings around him, breaking all his bones in iron embrace. This happens in cases where brave liberators do not arrive in time to help, who cut the snake to pieces with knives ...
Description of such heartbreaking scenes can be found in many adventure novels and even in other accounts of expeditions to the uncharted tropics.
Do giant snakes really attack humans? Are they capable of swallowing us? Hardly any other animal is fantasized about as much as pythons, anacondas or boas. And therefore, it is precisely with regard to these animals that even a specialist can find it very difficult in each individual case to decide what is true and what is fiction.
It starts with the definition of length. Even serious travelers claimed that anacondas 30 or even 40 meters long are found in the forests of the Amazon. But they, as a rule, were silent at the same time whether they measured these snakes themselves or know this from eyewitness accounts.
Anaconda is the same boa constrictor, only South American. It is she who is considered the largest and strongest among all the giant snakes in the world. Another South American snake, also no less famous and also a boa (Constrictor), reaches a length of "only" five or six meters.
I must say that measuring a snake is not so easy. It is most convenient to do this, of course, when it is stretched to its full length. But for big snake such a posture is completely unnatural; some of them are simply not able to accept it - they need to bend at least the very end of the tail to the side in order to have support. Voluntarily, such a strong animal will not allow itself to be straightened for measurement. In a dead snake, the body usually becomes so ossified that it is even more difficult to make a measurement. If we judge the length of snakes by their skins for sale, then it is very easy to fall into error: after all, this skin is sold by the meter, and therefore, while it is fresh, it can be stretched in length by 20 percent, and some say that even all 50. Snake hunters often use this.
It is interesting that live snakes are sold by the meter. Snake dealers charge zoos for small and medium-sized pythons from 80 pfennigs to one mark per centimetre. The New York Zoological Society announced many years ago that it would pay 20,000 marks to anyone who brought a live anaconda over ten meters long; yet no one has yet been able to earn this tempting sum.
Yet it is quite possible that such giants exist or existed until very recently. The weight of such an animal should be quite impressive; for example, an Asian reticulated python measuring 8.8 meters weighs 115 kilograms. It is no wonder that such a colossus, living in the thicket of a virgin forest, is not so easy to overcome without a whole horde of helpers. And then after all, you still need to be able to deliver it unharmed to the airfield or to the port.
The record length of the hieroglyphic python (Python sebae), widespread in Africa, is 9.8 meters. The Indian, or tiger, python (Python molurus) reaches 6.6 meters, the East Asian reticulated python (Python reticulatus) - either 8.4 meters, or 10 meters, depending on which source to believe. Slightly smaller amethyst python.
So we, in fact, have already listed all the six giants of the snake world: four egg-laying pythons - natives of the Old World and two viviparous boas - the New. Among the 2500 species of snakes inhabiting Earth, there are a number of other types of boas and pythons, but they are much smaller.
Giant snakes are not venomous. Unlike the fat giants of the snake kingdom, poisonous snakes (for example, the African mamba, sometimes reaching four meters, and even longer - King Cobra) thinner and leaner.
It takes a long time for a snake to reach its enormous size. An eight-meter reticulated python living in the Pittsburgh Zoo grew by only 25 centimeters in a year. The older the snake gets, the slower it grows.
By appearance it is absolutely impossible to determine whether a snake is a male or a female. A pair of hieroglyphic pythons that arrived at the New York Zoo at the age of one grew up with the same speed, but then the female began to noticeably lag behind in growth. The fact is that during this time she began to fast every year for six months: during the maturation of the eggs and when she warmed them, curled up around them.
Until what age can giant snakes live in the wild, we do not know. No one has ever ringed them in their habitats, as has been done for decades, for example, with migratory birds. We can only judge their age from zoo data. The anaconda lived the longest at the Washington Zoo - 28 years (from 1899 to 1927). One of the boas lived in England at the Bristol Zoo for 23 years and 3 months, and the hieroglyphic python reached the age of eighteen there. A tiger python at the San Diego Zoo (California) lived to be 22 years and 9 months old, and two East Asian reticulated pythons - one in London and one in Paris - died at the age of 21.
The giants of the snake kingdom are the only large animals on Earth that do not have a voice, like, in fact, all other snakes. At best, they can hiss. Snakes are not only dumb, but also deaf. They do not perceive sound vibrations of the air - they do not have ears for this, like other animals. But they perfectly perceive any, even the most insignificant shaking of the soil or bedding on which they rest.
In addition, these deaf-mute giants also have poor vision. Their eyes are devoid of moving eyelids, and the transparent leathery film protecting the eye during each molt is separated along with the entire skin and removed like glass from a watch. The snake eye lacks iris muscles, so the pupil cannot constrict in bright light and dilate in dim light. The snake barely reacts to a change in the illumination of the eyes: the lens in it cannot bend, as in ours, which makes it impossible for snakes to carefully examine objects located at close or far distances at will. To see anything, the snake has to move its entire head forward and backward. Perhaps all these are very useful properties (necessary, for example, for swimming and especially for looking at various items under water), but, by God, in the animal kingdom there are much more advanced eyes.
Since the python, like other snakes, does not close its eyes during sleep, it is always very difficult to determine whether it is sleeping or awake. Some snake researchers claim that a sleeping snake looks down, that is, its pupil is at the lower edge of the eye; others dispute this assertion.
The immobility of the snake's eyes gave rise to the repeated tale that snakes allegedly hypnotize, as if paralyzing their prey with their gaze. Frogs, lizards or small rodents do sometimes sit completely still in the presence of a giant boa constrictor, but this is due to various reasons: sometimes they simply do not notice the danger, and sometimes they become numb with fear; such fading brings them a certain benefit, since the immovable victim of the snake is not distinguished. After all, it is only when the frog runs away that the snake overtakes it.
How, after all, do these deaf-mute and, moreover, short-sighted giants find their livelihood? It turns out that they have developed such sense organs that we do not possess. So, for example, they unmistakably feel heat at a far distance. The snake feels the human hand already at a distance of thirty centimeters. Therefore, silently crawling snakes are quite easy to find even those warm-blooded animals that carefully hid in shelters. So that at the same time their own breathing does not interfere with them, some of them (for example, pythons) have their nostrils turned up and back.
But the sense of smell is most developed in snakes. It is rather surprising that the olfactory organ is located in their mouth, on the palate, and the necessary information is delivered to it by the tongue, which extracts various small particles from the air. Thus, snakes do not need daylight, they can crawl in the footsteps of their prey with the same success day and night.
Somehow, not far from the Serengeti, my son Michael and I stumbled upon a huge hieroglyphic python, reaching three to four meters in length. We decided to take it with us. By the way, giant snakes, if they do not hold on to a tree or are not entangled in the bushes, are not so difficult to catch. In an hour, they can do no more than one and a half kilometers - if they suddenly have a desire to crawl for an hour. Giant snakes move in a completely different way than their smaller relatives. They move forward, wriggling with their whole body, while in a giant snake, abdominal scales serve for this purpose. The scales are set in motion by the muscles extending from the ribs (the ribs themselves remain motionless at the same time), forcing it to move forward and backward like small scoops of an excavator.
At that time we did not yet have much experience in handling snakes, and therefore at first we showed extreme caution when guiding the python with horns. But in the end, we still decided to grab the snake by the tail, and she did not even try to attack us. We managed to stuff it into a sack, which we tied up and put under the camp bed in our tent for the night. Unfortunately, the next morning the bag was empty. Huge snake still managed to get out. However, from the trail she left, one could easily find out where she crawled. This track was straight, distinct and wide, as if someone was rolling a car tire.
Not a single snake, including poisonous ones, is able to catch up with a running person. But giant snakes can swim perfectly, much better than other land animals. As for the anaconda, it can be considered more aquatic than terrestrial animals.
Serpents and the sea do not care. So, one boa constrictor (Constriktor) was carried by the current for 320 kilometers from the South American coast and washed up on the island of St. Vincent, where he arrived in a great mood.
When Krakatau volcano erupted in 1888, all living things were destroyed on the island of the same name. Biologists observed how, over the following years and decades, various lichens, plants and animals gradually reappeared here. So, among the reptiles, rock pythons were the first to appear there, which by 1908 again took possession of the island.
Giant snakes have not yet completely turned into round ropes, as happened with other representatives of the snake tribe. Boas and pythons, like us, still have a pair of lungs, while in most other snakes the left lung has disappeared, and the right one has greatly elongated and noticeably expanded. Giant snakes have preserved small remains of pelvic and hip bones. But from the hind legs, only two pitiful claws remained outside - to the right and left of the anus.
How do such slow giants manage to catch their prey? From the very beginning it should be said that the statement that they deprive the consciousness of a person or some animal with a blow to the head is absolutely wrong. Head of these giant monsters not particularly hard, and in any case softer than ours. The snake itself would not be too pleased to use it for boxing. In addition, the attack of a giant snake is by no means as lightning fast as it is made out to be. The force with which a snake weighing 125 kilograms pounces on the victim does not exceed the force with which a dog weighing 20 kilograms attacks. Of course, some flimsy, unsportsmanlike European from such a push can fall. But a more or less dexterous man is quite capable of coping with a four-meter boa constrictor alone, at least if he manages to stand on his feet; he can pull down the snake coils that are wrapped around him with a few vigorous jerks.
It is much more important for a snake not to hit its head, but to cling to the victim with its teeth. To do this, she opens her mouth to the limit. The reticulated python has one hundred backward-curving teeth arranged in six rows in its mouth. Therefore, if he managed to grab at least a finger, it is no longer so easy to pull it back. To do this, you need to try to unclench the jaws of the snake and first stick your hand even further into the mouth, and then pull it out.
Only when the snake has firmly grasped the victim with its teeth, does it begin to wrap its rings around it. Therefore, those who have to deal with giant snakes should always remember that they need to be grabbed only by the "nape" - behind the head, so that they cannot bite.
Please take a closer look at the film footage or photographs depicting the “struggle” of a person with a giant snake, which allegedly strangles its victim. You will almost certainly notice that the "victim" grabbed the snake by the throat. In such cases, the person himself wraps the snake around himself and then plays out this whole scene of frenzied struggle.
But even if the snake managed to grab its prey with its teeth and wrap several rings around it, this does not mean that it can “crush all its bones.” Giant snakes, even if they weigh more than a hundred kilograms, by no means have such remarkable strength that they are credited with. After all, the larger and heavier the animal, the less strength it has in terms of a kilogram of body weight. Thus, a louse, given its weight, is 10,000 times stronger than an elephant. And smaller snakes can compress and suffocate a victim suitable for themselves much more strongly than giant snakes - their own.
Giant snakes kill not by crushing bones, but by strangulation. They squeeze so hard chest his victim, that she is not able to breathe air into the lungs. It is possible that the heart is also paralyzed from prolonged squeezing. The snake rings, wrapped around the victim's torso, act more like a rubber gut or rubber bandage than a strong one.<анат. Раздавить таким способом твердый костяк абсолютно невозможно. Поэтому когда в некоторых сообщениях о нападении змей фигурируют раздавленные человеческие черепа, то заранее можно твердо сказать, что это досужий вымысел. Человеческий череп достаточно твердый орешек, и мягкими, эластичными предметами его не расколешь!
My collaborator Dr. Gustav Lederer, who for forty years directed our exotarium, carefully examined three pigs, three rabbits and three rats killed but not yet swallowed by giant snakes. No broken bones were found on the victims. But in the already swallowed prey there were broken bones.
Giant snakes are kept in many zoos around the world and, as a rule, do not show any aggressiveness as long as they are left alone. They are even quite easy to tame. Free-living pythons, when attacked or seized, defend themselves only by trying to bite, and almost never try to throw their rings on the enemy, they do this only with the prey they are about to swallow.
In zoos, there are sometimes circumstances in which force must be applied to a snake (for example, transplanting a newly arrived guest into a terrarium or in cases where veterinary intervention is necessary). To keep the snake, people are arranged in this way: for every linear meter of the snake there is one person who must hold his part tightly, under no circumstances letting go of it.
I have asked everywhere about any case where a snake in a zoo would have killed someone, but so far I have never heard of it. True, I was told that at Rugs' Animal Company a few decades ago, a seven or eight meter reticulated python wrapped itself around Siegfried's senior attendant and "broke several of his ribs."
One former dancer, who once performed with snake dances, told the attendants of our Frankfurt Zoo that one of the snakes once squeezed her so hard - ~: broke two ribs. But in order for a slender girl to break two ribs, no supernatural powers are required. For example, once one of my sons, in a seizure, gently hugged his bride so tightly that something crunched inside her. Turns out he broke her rib...
Although giant boas, as already mentioned, are rarely tamed, nevertheless, the snakes with which dancers perform in various variety shows and circuses do not have to be tame at all. In order to wrap the snakes around the shoulders and waist without any risk during the dance, it is quite enough to cool them down before the performance, then you can wish almost anything with them. These cold-blooded animals become active only after they get warm enough.
Of course, dragging snakes on tour, especially in winter, keeping them in poorly heated stage restrooms or hotel rooms does not do them any good.
They do not last long and die. Therefore, dancers often have to restock their pythons.
It is not true that giant snakes have a habit, holding the end of their tail to a bough, hanging from a tree and thus catching their prey. The statement that they pre-moisten a dead animal with their saliva to facilitate swallowing is also incorrect. This misconception is based on the fact that snakes are often forced to regurgitate swallowed prey. This happens for various reasons: either the prey is unreasonably large, or when swallowed, it takes an uncomfortable position, or it has horns that prevent it from moving along the esophagus, and sometimes someone just frightened the snake, and this prevented her from calmly coping with the prey. Of course, a regurgitated animal is abundantly moistened with saliva, which led people who accidentally saw this to a misinterpretation.
Even very large and heavy snakes are able to crawl into relatively small loopholes, narrow windows or cracks in the fence. In this way, they usually make their way into chicken coops, pigsties, or barns where goats are kept. And so, when they, having swallowed their prey whole, try to crawl back into the same hole from which they came, a huge thickening on the body does not allow them to get out, and they find themselves in a trap. Here, it would seem, use your ability to burp swallowed prey in order to free yourself from imprisonment! But for this, snakes, as it turned out, "are not smart enough."
Similar cases have already been described quite often.
Of course, the most striking snake with a huge thickening on the body, therefore, has only recently swallowed some large animal. She is always willingly photographed from all sides, and it is quite easy to do this, because in this position the snake becomes clumsy and helpless. When an anaconda has several swallowed fish in its stomach or a young python has several frogs, rodents or birds, no one pays any attention to them.
This is what led to the misconception that giant snakes exist at the expense of much larger prey than they really are. To be honest, they are surprisingly modest eaters, these snakes, and, oddly enough, they can “fast” for a long time.
Among the largest victims of snakes are antelopes the size of an average roe deer or pigs, and not our large European pigs, but wild boars or small domestic pigs of hot countries. So, when it comes to the fact that such large antelopes as kudu, topi, waterbucks and eland antelopes can become victims of snakes, one must always keep in mind that these can only be young animals, and not adult animals.
In Uganda, in the Toro Reserve in the Semliki Valley, there are approximately 12,000 Ugandan marsh goats. These goats appear to be the main prey for hieroglyphic pythons. In any case, during the course of the year we ran into at least five bog goats killed by pythons. And every time the devils turned out to be not sexually mature females. A more thorough examination revealed that their bones were not broken, and death, apparently, came from strangulation.
Sometimes vultures try to snatch part of the snake prey. In such cases, the python hisses loudly and makes throws towards the impudent ones, trying to drive them away. However, the python never manages to grab the vulture, but the vultures, as a rule, manage to cut out large pieces of meat from the snake's prey.
Such a case has been reported. A python 4.5 meters long and weighing 54 kilograms caught a small female Ugandan marsh goat weighing 30 kilograms and began to swallow it: the head and neck of the victim had already disappeared into the snake's mouth. The snake's body was coiled around its prey. When keepers P. Hay and P. Martin approached the python, it didn't even move at first. When one of the approached began to pull out the bushes "oava" around the head of the snake, so that it would be more convenient to photograph, the python hissed and immediately released the victim from the mouth. But he did not want the slightest attempt to drive people away and did not even loosen the rings around the prey.
And in Zambia, at the Kariba reservoir, they observed how one hieroglyphic python grabbed the neck of an adult Nile monitor with its teeth and wrapped itself around the body of a lizard three times. This monitor lizard was 1 meter 53 centimeters long, while the python was 2 meters 40 centimes. Varan died shortly after his release, and the -iton's body showed no signs of injury after the struggle.
Another time they saw a python 2 meters 10 centimeters long, which was lying on a tree, tightly wrapping its rings around a monitor lizard that it had killed (reports by X. Roth).
It is known that one snake can swallow another, even equal in size, because the swallowed individual is strongly compressed. So, in the Transvaal (South Africa) they observed how a small python strangled a large black mamba. Mamba at first resisted madly, but after a two-hour struggle she calmed down and remained lying on the grass like a lifeless rope.
By the way, many species of snakes "specialized" in feeding on their own kind - other types of snakes. However, "cannibals" among them have never yet been met: they do not kill relatives of their own species.
But on the other hand, even a leopard was somehow found in the stomach of a five-meter python! In the fight against the snake, this dexterous and strong predator was able to inflict only the most minor injuries on it. True, the report on this case did not indicate whether it was an adult leopard or not. For example, in our Frankfurt Zoo, a seven to eight meter Indian reticulated python is not able to swallow a victim weighing more than 55 kilograms. An Indian python measuring 7.5 meters once swallowed a domestic pig weighing 54 kilograms, and on another occasion an Indian long-eared goat weighing 47.5 kilograms.
In both cases, it was not the killing of the prey that caused the snake the greatest difficulty, but the swallowing of the prey. Two days later, after the snake had swallowed the pig, it was still so swollen that it looked like an air-filled rubber hose, swollen in one place. We even feared that the animal might suffer greatly as a result.
The rest of the large reticulated pythons kept in the Frankfurt Zoo over the past decades, as a rule, refused large prey. True, it happened that they grabbed a victim weighing 30 kilograms or more and killed it, but in most cases they were unable to swallow it.
Dr. Lederer recorded that a seven-meter-long, extremely voracious python, after an hour of strenuous effort, did not manage to swallow a goat weighing 34 kilograms. Another python, measuring 7.7 meters, suffered in vain with a pig weighing 43 kilograms and could not swallow it.
In a word, no specialist has ever claimed that a giant snake is able to swallow a victim whose weight would exceed 60 kilograms.
If the grasping and killing of the victim takes a little time for the snake, then the predator is in no hurry to swallow the killed animal. She lowers the victim to the ground, carefully sniffs, and only after that begins to pull herself on it like a stocking. Most often it starts with the head. At the same time, she pauses, sometimes for as much as a quarter of an hour, and rests. It is known that snakes are able to release both the upper and lower jaws from the articulation, and then they are kept on the ligaments alone. This method allows you to open your mouth as wide as possible. The snake bites into the prey with several rows of teeth bent back, and then its jaws (alternately lower, then upper) move forward for some length. The larynx also protrudes forward so that the snake can breathe and not suffocate. The snake is so elastic only up to the stomach, all other insides are no longer stretched. Therefore, the food that gets there should already be completely dissolved by gastric juice.
Many species of snakes feed on their own kind. However, they do not devour relatives of their own species. But no one in this business, except for the king cobra, can compare with the clelia, America's false snake. Its local name is Moussou Rana. “A strong and large snake (up to two and a half meters). As soon as she feels the trail of any snake, Mussurana rushes in pursuit. Creeps quickly and soon overtakes the "game" (I. I. Akimushkin)
Despite the fact that pythons and boas can swallow huge pieces in one go, they still cannot be considered voracious. For one meal, they get 400 times more energy than they need in a day. But then they (sometimes by necessity, and even by mood) can not eat for a long time.
So, here in Frankfurt, one reticulated python fasted for 570 days, then ate for a while, and then “fasted” again for 415 days. And the Gaboon viper (a venomous and smaller snake from Africa) refused food for 679 days, that is, for almost two years. An Indian tiger python ate nothing for 149 days and lost only 10 percent of its body weight.
From all of the above, we can already conclude that pythons are not able to kill, much less swallow a person. In zoos, over time, even a kind of friendly or at least trusting relationship is established between giant snakes and servants of the terrarium. The giant gets used to having the attendant pacing back and forth past him while cleaning his room, and he doesn't make any aggressive attacks. However, some snakes (with a bad "character") remain biting until the end of their days. Every sharp gesture, even a quick movement of a person's eyes, can prompt them to< нападению. Если змее удается схватить зубами живое тело, она непременно старается обвиться вокруг него. Если же она схватила свободно висящую материю — подол пальто или край свитера, — она не делает таких попыток. Это нам удалось наблюдать в доброй полдюжине случаев. Опытный в таких делах человек свободно может справиться со здоровым питоном дли--ой от 3 до 4,5 метра. Однако змеи, достигающие шести метров и солее, могут быть для человека весьма опасными. Тем не менее -о сих пор не известны сколько-нибудь достоверные случаи, когда бы живущая на свободе гигантская змея умертвила, а тем солее проглотила взрослого человека. При этом следует учесть, *то в отдельных районах земного шара, в особенности в Восточной Азии, змеи зачастую живут совсем рядом с жилищем человека. Как истребители крыс, они пользуются даже определенной симпатией со стороны жителей деревень. Пока такая змея молода, она не представляет ни малейшей опасности ни для людей, ни для домашних животных.
Recently, in an African scientific journal, a farmer reported on a four-year-old kid who daily went down to the river, carrying with him a bowl of milk or porridge, explaining that he was going to play with Nana. One day, the father decided to see who his son was going to feed, and, to his horror, he saw that it was a huge python. He immediately killed the snake. But since pythons do not eat porridge or milk, everything in this story seems very implausible to me. The fact that snakes allegedly drink milk and even milk cows is an absurd, but completely ineradicable belief.
On the Napo River in Ecuador, a huge anaconda grabbed one diver, dragged him under water and drowned him, but did not swallow him, they say about a thirteen-year-old boy who was also drowned by a snake: she swallowed him, but then belched him again. The father of the child after a day and a half found this snake and killed it. This incident also occurred in one of the tributaries of the Napo River.
Another authentic story describes how a reticulated python swallowed a fourteen-year-old Malay boy from Salebabu Island. Something similar was told to us by an Indian veterinarian who visited the Frankfurt Zoo in the twenties. He even showed photographs confirming the documentary nature of his story.
But how truly rare cases these are can only be understood when you imagine how many such large snakes live on the globe (or lived at least until very recently). This can be judged at least by the number of tanned snake skins. By the way, snake skin is by no means slippery and sticky, as many people who experience an irresistible disgust for snakes imagine; to the touch it is pleasantly cool and completely dry, as if holding a wallet in your hands. Swimming through the water and crawling through the mud, the snake always remains dry and clean. She crawls on her stomach on the rocks, but does not damage her skin in the least.
Since tanners have learned to process even the most unusual skins, the demand for snakes has risen sharply in the world market. A variety of fashionable items of clothing and haberdashery are made from snakeskin. True, so far no one has managed to preserve the beautiful color pattern of the skin of a living snake on these products.
In the trade catalogs of most countries, "reptile skins" are usually indicated, which include, in addition to snake skins, alligators, crocodiles, large lizards and other similar animals. In 1951, the United States purchased no less than 8 million of such reptile skins, Great Britain even 12 million. Approximately half of these skins are snakes, and they belong to the largest and, therefore, almost exclusively harmless, and not poisonous snakes.
In total, at least 12 million snake skins go on sale every year. If a belt were sewn from all of them, then they could encircle the entire globe along the equator.
Considering that there are an incredible number of snakes in the warm regions of our planet, there is every reason to consider the rarest deaths associated with the attack of these reptiles as an exception. In any case, we humans can be calm: we are not listed on the snake menu.
But the opposite, by the way, cannot be argued: many people eat snakes with pleasure. So, for example, Madame de Sevigny wrote in her notes at the end of the 17th century that it was the eating of vipers that so surprisingly refreshes and purifies her blood and miraculously rejuvenates the body.
Most snakes are eaten in China. However, even in the United States, rattlesnakes are canned, and their fresh meat is sold as a special delicacy. Henry Raven, who hunted in Kalimantan, told how the Dayaks who accompanied him during the hunt seized with great delight a python that was about to slip into the water. In the stomach, the snakes found two swallowed pigs, so that "the hunters made a feast, during which even pork was served."
In Africa, snake meat is also eaten, mainly from the hieroglyphic python.
A female anaconda 5.3 meters long gave birth to 34 cubs, each 70 centimeters long, in the zoological garden.
Pythons, on the other hand, lay eggs - sometimes 20 pieces, or even up to 70; At the Frankfurt Zoo, pythons have an average of 46 eggs. Just set aside, they are white, soft, shiny and sticky. But after a few minutes, the shine of the eggs disappears, and they stick together, which, of course, significantly reduces their total surface and slows down evaporation. After a few hours, the egg skin hardens and becomes parchment-like. Eggs need warmth and dampness to mature; if, even for the shortest time, they landed in the water, everything was lost.
Pythons incubate their eggs, and in a very real way. They are laid in rings around the masonry, as if wrapping it, and on top they put their head as if on a pillow.
Already in 1841, in the Paris Zoo, it was noticed that these cold-blooded animals still manage to warm their eggs. At the Washington Zoo, very recently, with the help of very accurate thermometers, it was possible to establish that in the incubating female of the hieroglyphic python, the body temperature rises by three to four degrees - exactly the same number of degrees, males are colder than females. If you stick a thermometer between the tightly pressed rings of a hatching snake, it is often found that the difference in temperature between the body of the snake and the surrounding air exceeds seven degrees. In this position - entwined around her masonry - the female remains lying for about 80 days, while she does not take food at all.
Young pythons in our zoo molt five to nine times a year, adults three to seven times. The skin of the snake begins to slide off the head. Thin and transparent, it can be pulled off the snake's body like a stocking.
If our skin, people, did not come off gradually, in the form of the smallest scales and dandruff, but entirely, as happens with snakes, we would certainly arrange this process as solemnly as possible, surrounding it with all sorts of ritual mysteries and beliefs. And, of course, dozens of tips would be listened to on radio and television every evening, with the help of which ointments and ointments can speed up molting, and make the newly born young skin brighter and more beautiful.
However, snakes are sometimes not averse to using outside help during molting. So, in the Transvaal, a certain J. Marais noticed how several grazing cows were diligently licking something on the ground. Coming closer, he saw that it was a huge molting python. The snake lay stretched out while the cows licked off its skin. Noticing the approach of a man, the python immediately crawled into cover.
Having reached the age of five or six, male giant snakes go in search of brides. And they crawl in the footsteps of females. The fact that these are traces of females, they, in all likelihood, determine by the smell emitted by special odorous glands located in those in the anus. When such a pair meets, they raise their heads towards each other, feel the partner with their tongue, and only then mate. Mating in the zoo usually lasts up to two and a half hours.
Not a single fact suggests that in the past, prehistoric times, larger and more powerful snakes were found than now. In contrast to various "saurs" and other reptiles, whose "golden age" has long since passed, the suborder of snakes, on the contrary, has reached its magnificent flowering, apparently, only recently.
We humans first encountered giant snakes, most likely in Africa, where, judging by the latest research, the cradle of mankind should be located. At first, the person, apparently, did not find them so repulsive and disgusting, in any case, he does not have an innate fear of snakes. Both human and monkey cubs under the age of two do not show the slightest fear at the sight of snakes, they even play with them. By the age of five, children's curiosity, as well as their interest in these strange crawling creatures, increases, while fear appears later (probably under the influence of the example of the elders).
People in their imagination turned snakes not only into devils, as it is said in the history of the origin of man according to the Bible, but also into deities. Moreover, giant snakes were almost always deified.
In Dahomey, the clergy worshiped the python god and carried it in their arms during church processions. The one who killed the python was locked in a hut and set on fire. If the unfortunate man managed to escape from the burning building without outside help, he was forgiven.
When the kings of Nigeria entered into treaties with the British, they invariably stipulated the immunity of pythons. One European who killed a python in his house was tied by the Africans by the hands, stripped naked and spat from head to toe.
It is from places where hieroglyphic pythons are considered sacred and never persecuted that there are reports of them killing and swallowing young children. This is one of the islands on Lake Victoria.
In West Africa, in Dahomey, there are snake worshipers who follow the precepts of one king, who declared pythons sacred back in the 19th century. Even in the southern part of the country, heavily influenced by Christianity, locals collect tribute for pythons crushed on the roads.
Kvida, a place 30 kilometers east of Cotonou, is a real Mecca for snake worshipers throughout Africa. This area is home to the largest number of pythons.
One American who caught 1,265 king and hieroglyph pythons here for sale in 1967 had a big problem. Residents of neighboring houses threatened to set fire to his house, in which he kept the caught snakes, so he had to urgently build himself a new home. But the neighbors came there too; they plastered all the walls of his house with posters, threw stones at the windows and staged real demonstrations. The excited demonstrators even tried to overturn the car in which the American's wife was sitting and threatened his African assistants with reprisals.
Many fairy tales and beliefs are also associated with the deification of snakes. It is said, for example, that pythons only kill bulls, while cows are spared. This is because they supposedly like to wrap themselves around the cow in rings and squeeze milk out of her udder. They allegedly do the same thing in Nepal with nursing mothers.
They say that a gigantic snake, accidentally caught on a ship, squeezed a barrel of water so that the iron hoops fell on the deck.
It is also said that in case of danger, pythons swallow their own cubs for a while to save them from enemies, and then, when the threat has passed, they burp them.
One missionary newspaper recommended that if you are attacked by a snake, lie down on the ground and freeze while it sniffs you. But as soon as the snake begins to pull itself on your legs and reaches your knees, quietly pull out a knife from your pocket and open the side of its mouth.
The tribes living near Mount Meru in Tanzania believe that. that the dying python at the end seems to spit out a precious stone. When such a stone is not found, then all the snakes present at the death begin to accuse each other of stealing.
The steppes of Africa and the jungles of India and the Malay Peninsula, with our means of communication, can in no way be considered very remote and lost somewhere on the edge of the earth. If today someone is seized and swallowed by a snake somewhere, then you can be sure that such a terrible and exciting event will immediately appear on the pages of the entire world press. And since not only in recent years, but also for decades, we have not read anything like this anywhere, therefore, such incidents have never or almost never happened.
Therefore, we can safely say that such giants as boas and pythons are practically quite harmless for us humans.
In the Kazakh steppes, shepherds meet muzzles. Geologists and tourists in the mountain gorges are faced with a gyurza, and in the sands with a cobra. At every encounter with a snake, a person experiences instinctive fear. This is clear. Nothing good can be expected from a snake. You can hear the most incredible stories about the deceit and viciousness of snakes. “Eyewitnesses” claim that the snakes are chasing a person, persistently chasing him, jumping, turning into a wheel and rolling after him ...
Such stories are caused by fear and ignorance of the habits of snakes. To some extent they are forgivable: fear has large eyes. But are snake encounters really that dangerous? For several years, I and my friends - A. I. Kochevsky, A. A. Azarov, B. A. Rozendorf and others - have been engaged in a fascinating and interesting hunt - catching poisonous snakes. We do this not out of sporting interest. Snakes are needed for medical purposes. From us, the snakes come to the nursery, where the poison is taken from them and transferred to pharmaceutical companies.
On the total account of our brigade there are about 9000 pieces of various poisonous snakes. We caught common and steppe vipers, pallas muzzle and sand efu, Central Asian gyurza and cobra. During the hunt, we had the opportunity to study the habits of these creatures. (Catching snakes is a job, although dangerous, but involving exciting trips to various interesting places, although, of course, you can always travel with a safer purpose, such as education, especially since from now on, for example, going to study in Austria is not so for Ukrainians too difficult).
All types of poisonous snakes are not the first to attack a person. As a rule, they try to crawl away. And, of course, do not chase a person. Of course, if the snake is persistently pursued, grabbed with a hand or pressed with a foot, it will use its terrible teeth. But after all, a mouse, if you pick it up and press it, also bites!
In any, even the most snake-like place, a little attention and composure when meeting a snake voluntarily or involuntarily will help to avoid its bite. The behavior of all snakes when meeting a person depends, first of all, on the degree of heating of the snake. In cool, cloudy or weather, when the snakes are cooled, their movements are lethargic, slow, uncertain. The snake takes a pose of threat - it twists into a ball (all snakes do this, except for the cobra), hisses loudly, sometimes opens its mouth wide and makes lunges with its head towards the approaching person. There is no serious danger in this, because the chilled snake moves so slowly that it is not difficult to destroy it.
It is a different matter in dry and hot weather: the snakes are then well warmed up and active. True, an active snake, having noticed a person from a distance, usually tries to crawl away to the nearest shelter. If she is not pursued, then after 10-15 minutes she again crawls out of the shelter and, having looked around, fits into the same place where she lay before. The movements of the snake are sharp, fast. If at this time the snake is being pursued, and there is nowhere for it to hide, then it defends itself: huddling into a ball, with a hiss throws its head towards the pursuer. However, even at the same time, she tries to approach any shelter and slip into it.
With persistent pursuit, the snake becomes ferocious, and becomes quite dangerous. Quickly shrinking into a ball and immediately straightening to its full length, as if jumping above the ground, it tries to approach the pursuer. Her movements are so fast that it is difficult to follow them. In such cases, the snake attacks the person. But she does this only on the defensive and only when she has nowhere to hide.
Why do snakes still bite people and animals? First of all, the snake bites the careless person who pressed it with his foot or hand. But there are times when snakes bite people and animals that have not touched them ...
Snakes are not afraid of moving objects, if these objects do not make sudden movements. It is possible that snakes simply do not notice them, since their eyesight is rather weak. When picking berries or mushrooms, a person and a grazing animal move slowly and do not make sudden movements. The snake is not frightened and does not crawl away from the bed, where it is usually hidden, and does not stand out from the general background. Neither man nor animal notices the snake lying motionless, and approach it at too close a distance. A frightened snake resorts to self-defense and bites an unexpected guest.
Not so long ago it was established that rattlesnakes have a very interesting organ that other animals do not have - a thermolocator that captures heat rays. With its help, even a blinded snake without a miss strikes a body that radiates heat. It is possible that not only rattlesnakes, but also other snakes have the same organ. With it, they detect slow moving people and animals only at very close range. This is unexpected for the snakes themselves and causes a defensive reflex: the snake bites a heat source, possibly dangerous.
The snake strikes its prey in two ways. If it is pressed or grabbed by the hand, but far from the head, then it bites the attacker with a stranglehold. It is quite difficult to get rid of it. If the snake is disturbed, but not pressed, then it opens its mouth wide - almost 180 °, and the poisonous teeth stick forward; like spears. Throwing its head sharply, the snake beats the victim with its teeth and immediately pulls its head back. The teeth break through the obstacle, and at the same moment, by contraction of the muscles surrounding the venomous sac, the poison, as from a syringe, is ejected from the tooth. Sometimes a pressed snake does not close its mouth, but only beats with its teeth.
To be continued.
Snakes are one of the most poorly understood inhabitants of the animal world of the Earth. In addition, since ancient times, a genetic fear of these creatures has been inherent in humans. In ancient times, hunters tried to escape from this creature, only seeing it. The poisonous species of these animals literally terrified the most powerful representatives of mankind. Indeed, one bite was enough to thunder into the next world.
However, are snakes really that scary? Not really. Most of the stories and "facts" are fiction that have nothing to do with reality. So, here are the 10 most common myths about snakes.
Almost all snakes are venomous
No and no again. Of the 2500 known species, only 400 are poisonous. However, only 9 live in Europe. Most dangerous snakes in South America. There are 72 of them. The rest live evenly: in Australia, Africa, Southeast Asia, the USA.
snakes love milk
Alas, Conan Doyle was wrong. In The Motley Ribbon, he wrote that snakes love milk. This is not true. Moreover, after drinking it, the snake may die. Her body cannot digest lactose in principle.
The snake stings
Of course not! It does not sting, but like most animals in this world, it bites. A forked tongue is needed for something completely different. And the poison is released just through the teeth. Well, that's what language is for.
Snakes stick out their tongues when they are about to attack.
Yes, snakes stick out their tongues. Constantly. This is how they breathe and study the environment. Because they don't have a nose. Therefore, snakes rely on their tongues to smell their prey and see if it is edible. Aggression has nothing to do with it.
In order for a snake to stop being poisonous, you need to pull out its teeth.
Yes, such a brutal procedure will not help for a long time. But it can kill a snake. Through their teeth, these creatures express poison. And when there are no teeth, there is nothing to express through. The snake may die. However, this does not always happen. Teeth grow back pretty quickly.
snakes are trained
No. Snakes are not trained. Never and by no means. She perceives a person only as a warm tree or a potential threat. Everything!
Snakes hate people and attack them
The snakes don't care about us. They only bite in self-defense. Did you see a snake? Did she adopt a threatening posture? Go your own way. Nobody will hunt you. You are more dangerous to her than alone to you. Unless, of course, we are talking about a giant anaconda or a boa constrictor.
snakes eat meat
Yes, they eat. Mice, frogs, fish, small lizards. There are also those who eat only other snakes. For example, the king cobra. What to feed the snake depends only on itself, the species. So a juicy steak is not for everyone.
The snake is cold
The snake can be both cold and warm. This is a cold-blooded animal. The warmth of her body depends on the temperature outside. Snakes, like all cold-blooded ones, love to bask in the sun. They require a body temperature of around 30 degrees to function properly.
The snakes are all slime
No. No slime. On the contrary, snakes are pleasant to the touch. Their skin does not contain glands, they are smooth. They make shoes, bags, clothes. And they aren't covered in slime at all.
snakes wrap around the branches
No. It is only the serpent-tempter that is depicted twisting the branches. Real snakes, on the other hand, climb trees and settle along the branches.
