Interesting Study on Crustacean-Eating Snakes including One That will Rip a Crab to P

[Ax01]

looks like i ran outta space in the thread title but the full title of this thread was gonna be "Interesting Study on Crustacean-Eating Snakes including One That will Rip a Crab to Pieces with It's Mouth to Eat It Piece By Piece"

recently i read this cool article about this mud/water snake in SE Asia that eats crabs then it linked to college journal where this hip professor/biologist is really into snakes. his name is Bruce Jayne and among his studies are these 3 species of mud/water snakes and what they ate and how they ate it. the coolest snake would hunt and wait for a crab to molt before eating it! it would have like a 20minute window before the crab's shell hardens again and it would rip it to swallow it piece by piece. it's kinda brutal but very fascinating in how they hunt and evolved.

here's some of the article:

The vast majority of snakes swallow their prey whole. However, the cat-eyed water snake (Gerarda prevostiana) from the mangroves of southeast Asia likes to do things differently, according to a new study published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

These animals violently rip their food to pieces, which is especially impressive given that they feast on spiky crabs.

A team of researchers from the University of Cincinnati (UC) found that the snakes wait until a crab has just moulted (crabs periodically shed their hard exoskeleton and replace it with a new one). New shells are much softer than usual, but they quickly harden.

"The snakes only have about a 20-minute window to eat the crab the way they really like them," Bruce Jayne, a UC biologist told the university magazine.

If the snake catches a crab during this window, it will be soft enough to rip apart. Night vision footage captured by Jayne shows a cat-eyed water snake biting a crab before pinning it down and crushing it with its body. It then proceeds to brutally tear off pieces from it, eating them one by one.

This method requires a lot of effort, but the rewards are significant—the cat-eyed water snake can eat prey up to four times bigger than what they would be capable of swallowing whole, giving them a survival advantage.

read the rest here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbe...AvFBQY#image=1

and here's the college journal. there's some cool pix of Dr. Jayen and his cute snakes: http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks...crabsnake.html

here's a of one of the crab eating snakes in action...



snakes: some don't constrict or swallow prey whole.

[Kcl]

Queen snakes almost solely eat freshly molted crayfish. Their populations have been declining and it's been hypothesized that pollution makes it more difficult for them to track their prey since they're believed to do so by essentially smelling the hormones given off when the crayfish molt. Given that, I'd wonder if the cat-eyed watersnake is having some of the same problems.

[Reinz]

Those videos are so incredibly interesting! And packed with tons of information for such short videos. I’ve never heard of those snakes before either.

Thanks AX!

[Ax01]

Queen snakes almost solely eat freshly molted crayfish. Their populations have been declining and it's been hypothesized that pollution makes it more difficult for them to track their prey since they're believed to do so by essentially smelling the hormones given off when the crayfish molt. Given that, I'd wonder if the cat-eyed watersnake is having some of the same problems.

ugh, pollution stinks!

Those videos are so incredibly interesting! And packed with tons of information for such short videos. I’ve never heard of those snakes before either.

Thanks AX!

yw. it is really interesting! the other crab-eating snake pins down the crab prey w/ it's chin to keep it from wriggling as it coils and subdues i and then swallows it whole.

Edit: when could we see your Olive Python?

[Reinz]

Anytime!

She begs and expects to come out nightly. I try my best to oblige.


I don’t have any recent pics of her now at 7 months. But here she is at 5 months.


And one at 6 months trying to blend.

[Valyndris]

that's awesome, snakes are really smart from what I've seen in videos and personal experience with my ball python. At first I read "crab eating snakes" wrong, it can be interpreted opposite ways. lol

[Kcl]

that's awesome, snakes are really smart from what I've seen in videos and personal experience with my ball python. At first I read "crab eating snakes" wrong, it can be interpreted opposite ways. lol

Who knows, maybe it sometimes happens the other way too? Crayfish will eat the young queen snakes sometimes if they get the chance and crabs are often opportunists too.

[Team Slytherin]

Anytime!

She begs and expects to come out nightly. I try my best to oblige.


I don’t have any recent pics of her now at 7 months. But here she is at 5 months.


And one at 6 months trying to blend.

Oh man, what a gorgeous olive!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ax01]

she looks like a big brave beautiful baby Reinz! only 7months? wow! she's probably gonna be your biggest snake! congrats on the croc eater!

[Reinz]

Haha, I hope she gets bigger than my 8 foot Coatal Carpets, they don’t seem so big anymore.

As as fierce as Olivia is right now, I do believe that she would take a Croc on right now given the opportunity.