Bonus Video: Snake Plays Dead

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

You have to hand it to the hognose snake. He’s not poisonous, but he pretends that he is; and if that doesn’t work, he plays dead. It must convince somebody, somewhere.

20 comments on “Bonus Video: Snake Plays Dead”

  1. I had a western hognose, for a while. She never did the play-dead routine, but when she was young, she’d flatten her neck and try to look scary. After a while, she became completely tame, and was very docile.

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    3. Having a pet snake is a bit different than any other pet I can think of. It is, perhaps, on par with a goldfish. If you have a snake, it doesn’t usually pay attention to you, in as much as it probably won’t react when you walk up to its cage, unless you happen to startle it, and that is rare.

      Snakes literally taste the air, with their flicking tongues, and recognize their surroundings by scent. So a snake will learn that your scent is no reason to feel threatened, but that’s about it.

      When I had my hognose, she was “tame”, in the sense that she wouldn’t try to escape from me if I held her, but their behavior is very simple. She didn’t react to me, except that my scent registered as “not a threat”, so there was no reason to try to escape.

    4. Actually goldfish are very nice pets. If you feed them by hand, they learn to know and trust you. Well, mine did.

    6. So, more so (if not entirely) than instinct, reasoning skills of sorts, or interpersonal bond, they simply learn our scents and recall we mean no harm (if I interpret that correctly and digest it my own way). : ) Still awesome. My nephew came to visit with his snake wrapped around his neck. Jeffery, the snake, was very docile as others held him, but he pursued getting closer to my nephew each time he was being handed back. I thought it sweet, believing it was a bond, but I see there is the more probable chance that he wanted back to the only familiar, safe scent he knew. Thank you for this which I had not considered in pondering their behaviors.

    7. All I can say is that snakes are different than anything else I’ve ever dealt with. A cat, or a dog, appears to be paying attention to whatever is happening in the room, but a snake seems to only be paying attention to things it perceives as an immediate threat. I once stood a few feet away from a juvenile diamondback, who didn’t even seem to notice me. But a car drove past and and the snake was obviously startled. So a human, 5’ away, wasn’t a concern, scent and all, but a car driving past, 30’ away caused an abrupt reaction.

      Snakes are very different. Wild hognose are fun to watch, and quite harmless. My pet hognose struck at me, the first time I picked her up, but that merely amounts to being butted, because their teeth are in the back. She might have done that twice, when she was only a few inches long, but after that, it seemed like she was fine with being held, but would get restless after a few minutes.

    10. I don’t have much experience with snakes. But when we see an animal change behavior that’s wired in, because its circumstances have changed–well, that’s pretty smart.

    13. That’s thought to be a deliberate behavior to repel predators.

    14. It’s either mysterious instinct within their DNA, they just know what to do!!
      …Or there is reasoning, an instant decision. Whatever it is, I find it fascinating!

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