Smokey with a smaller rattler.
Posted on 03/16/2016 6:11:27 PM PDT by MtnClimber
The Texas rat snake was just as much of a speed demon as deadly vipers, challenging long-held notions about snake adaptations.
When a snake strikes, it literally moves faster than the blink of an eye, whipping its head forward so quickly that it can experience accelerations of more than 20 Gs. Such stats come from studies of how a snake lunges, bites and kills, which have focused mostly on vipers, in part because these snakes rely so heavily on their venomous chomps.
"It's the lynchpin of their strategy as predators," says Rulon Clark at San Diego State University. "Natural selection has optimized a series of adaptations around striking and using venom that really helps them be effective predators."
That means scientists have long assumed vipers must have the speediest strikes in town. "There's this kind of preemptive discussion that [vipers] are faster," says David Penning at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
Not so fast: When Penning and his colleagues compared strike speeds in three types of snakes, they found that at least one nonvenomous species was just as quick as the vipers. The results hint that serpents' need for speed may be much more widespread than thought, which raises questions about snake evolution and physiology.....
They put each snake inside a container and inserted a stuffed glove on the end of a stick. They waved the glove around until the animal struck, recording the whole thing with a high-speed camera. The team tested 14 rat snakes, 6 cottonmouths and 12 rattlesnakes, recording several strikes for each individual.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Hey Joe! Think you can get MtnClimber to 4G?
“Texas rat snake was just as much of a speed demon as deadly vipers, challenging long-held notions about snake adaptations.”
Again, evolutionary theory is wrong.
What do molecular biologists and biochemists call evolutionary biologists?
Jokes.
“I don’t see how this is such a surprise...”
Me neither.
Evolutionary biologists make things up and forget to actually do experiments.
GOP-e donor: slow
¿Jeb? : very slow, low energy. Please clap.
Megyn Kelly : extremely slow, lovestruck
Nice job Smokey!!!!!!!!!
Where I live, I literally see at least one usually 2 snakes every time I mow. Rat Snakes are wicked fast, but have ever seen a Speckled King in action?
Perhaps that’s the unconscious reason Votaw and Saratoga somehow never make it on my vacation-destination list.
It has always been known that a non poisonous snake is faster than a poisonous one is.
A lot of them die from subsequent infections.
That’s why most of us snake owners feed frozen/thawed.
Yes I could.
[would you please buy me a high speed camera? I’ll split the grant money with you]
:D
Smokey with a smaller rattler.
Yeah, true.
Horrible thing, swallowing your food both live and whole.
Worst emotional conflict ever was finding one of my resident Garters desperately trying to swallow a very large Spotted Salamander he’d caught out behind my house.
Save the ‘mander or let the snake eat?
I figured he’d gone to a lot of trouble for it and it really didn’t seem to be alive anymore so...
Beautiful dog.
You know, in my example I was going to use the garter snake since I consider them extremely common, and milk snakes less so (or better at hiding). But I wanted a snake which was non-venomous and non-constricting — and it turns out that garter snakes are very slightly venomous. I had no idea. No danger to people, and it’s not clear to me how the venom helps the garter, but it appears to be so.
The wonders of nature, eh?
Duuuuuh!
I have original research where I have collected all the data, and never published. Just making the time is hard.
You probably can rent a high speed camera now.
The big finds in science were made by amateur scientists.
Darwin did most of his work on his own dime.
Einstein did his work on his own time.
Newton was at a University, so he is the big exception.
I am half serious about the project, but no, I will not fund it.
Too many projects of my own, not enough time.
What kind of rattler? Coloring looks like Eastern Diamondback, but the black towards the tail is like a Western Diamondback.
Thanks. This is one of Smokey's pups. My Granddaughter named her Chloe.
She was the sweetest pup you ever saw. Smart too. One day she just disappeared. I think someone stole her but not sure.
Yup, that’s why those constrictors not only strike fast, but throw loops fast to disable movement. Like you alluded to with the exploding heart/brain aneurism thing, most folks don’t realize just how hard the snake is constricting right after the strike.
Freegards
Yes they are Eastern Diamondbacks. The smaller one did not have any rattles only a bud.
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