Didn’t know about these. Used to poke around in the pine/palmetto/coral a little bit. Strange country.
I never heard of them, either.
Years ago I had the worst conflict of interest experience.
I found a little Garter teen trying to swallow a big Eastern Spotted Salamander and struggling mightily with that.
[eyes bigger than belly syndrome]
The salamander was obviously already deceased so saving it from the snake was pointless so I ended up staying with it until I knew it was going to be able to finish swallowing it and be okay.
A few years ago a pair of Banded Water Snakes [aka OMG it’s Cottonmouths!!!] popped up in my little fish pond.
At first I thought my largest and elderly Comet had died and was floating but then I saw the larger water snake had it stuck sideways in its mouth and was struggling and exhausted from trying to swallow it.
So I fished it out, got it to spit out the Comet and tossed the Comet over in the corner of the yard.
[meanwhile, the tiny water snake was periscoping around the little pond like Nessie, so stinking cute]
I figured the danger was past and went back inside.
I came out an hour later the snake had gone over to the corner of the yard, found the dead Comet and had carried it back to the pond and was giving it another go.
By this time the Comet had “shrunken” a bit from lying out in the sun and the water snake managed to eat it.
I was really freaking out, worried it would die from eating something too large.
later that day I went to the pet store and bought a bunch of size-appropriate feeder fish for the water snakes to avoid this hysteria, again.
My wild critter friendly yard is so full of nature drama.
:D