I think this is a reticulated python, and they’re arboreal snakes! It’s totally natural for him to climb vine-like things and try to get to high spots where they can rest and watch for prey.
From the video description: “This desert kingsnake was hit by a car in Arizona, and a group of students came to its rescue.”
Rescue almost doesn’t begin to cover it. First off, this is a baby snake, only a couple months old. Second, the snake’s heart was outside his body and somehow the teacher managed to push it in and perform emergency surgery… and the snake survived. And is doing fine! He’s got a twitter!
Whoaaaa. Not super gorey but fascinating.
This is super fascinating. Look at how the heart beats! Amazing the snake wasn’t injured beyond that.
Disclaimer: The person who recorded the video stated that it was done to demonstrate the behavior to school children who visited the education facility. Please do not harass animals for viral videos.
This particular juvenile seems to be more theatrical than other hognoses we’ve ever seen. Thoughts?
This is a fascinatingly dramatic death scene from this baby snake. I wonder if the reason it’s so dramatic is similar to why the bite of a baby rattlesnake is actually more dangerous than an adult’s – they take threats so much more seriously and then overreact to them because they haven’t learned what’s really a threat and what isn’t. Maybe this is the playing dead version of that?
Hoggies are just generally dramatic. I think Easterns are usually a lot worse for their drama and playing dead but even adults will do it and it will be just as dramatic. This is a big adult doing the same thing (granted I really don’t like seeing anyone stress out a snake to this point. This is their absolutely most dramatic stress moment and this person is going overboard with the stress)
I have a western hognose and even a simple water change is me being a ‘big scary monster trying to eat her’. She’ll hiss and closed-mouth strike as if her very life is in danger (it is though. Clean water is lethal! jk) I once accidently scared her so bad (I moved her hide, I know I’m a monster!) that she popped her scent glands out. That was one of the worst smells ever. They can also make themselves bleed from the mouth for that extra death faking. (She did that once to me on a mouth check for RI’s, THAT was a fun day. NOT!) They are big bluffers and will hiss or strike at anything coming close and seem to be very cautious about anything
Hognoses also rarely bite so looking like a cobra or puff adder (flattening head/neck, bluffing, closed-mouth striking) is their main defense. They can also force pop out their scent glands from their cloaca as an added ‘I am dead, smell me, I smell like death and feces’
There are reports of them being rear-fanged venomous (it’s really debated though) but I’ve found to do anything they have to kind of chew on the prey/predator to start doing any damage (on humans it’s like a bee sting response) so it’s a dangerous risk for them to bite. They also don’t have teeth near the front of their mouth so they really need that good deep bite to even be worth it.
PiraticOctopus 