Spiders and grasshoppers: Chinese Kukrisnake ( Oligodon cinereus) Toads which puff up in defence: The North American Hognose Snake ( Heterodon) has enlarged sword-like rear teeth, first thought to puncture and deflate the toad, but now found to inject a venom to relax and deflate the toad.Ĭrayfish: the North American Queensnake ( Reigina septemvittata) eats only freshly moulted soft-shelled crayfish.Ĭ arrion, occasionally: Cottonmouth ( Agkistrodon piscivorus) This is probably the only snake that can disassemble its prey! If the crab is too large, it will twist off and eat only the legs. It then bites into the crab to inject its venom. It stalks crabs at night on the mangrove mudflats, then captures the crab by jumping on them to pin them against the mud. By removing the snail, the snake doesn't need to digest the shell and can eat more snails.Ĭentipedes: the Cape Centipede Eater ( Aparallactus)Īnts and termites: Blindsnakes ( Ramphotyphlops)Ĭrabs: the White-bellied Mangrove Snake ( Fordonia leucobalia). The snail is then hooked out with the long front teeth, and twisting movements. The Southeast Asian Snail Eating Snakes ( Pareatinae spp) has a lower jaw strengthened by the fusion of adjacent scales which is inserted into the snail shell. Because their prey is soft, the snake lacks expandable chins found on most snakes and it can't swallow large prey. The Thirst Snake ( Dipsas) holds the shell in its coils, wedges its long hooked lower jaw between the shell and the snail and uses its shorter upper jaw to slowly extract the snail. Snail specialists: The Brown Snake ( Storeria dekayi) grabs the fleshy snail, wedges the shell under a rock, then rolls itself around to twist the titbit out of its shell. ![]() ![]() The King Cobra (right) is another snake that preys on snakes. The prey snake is killed by a twist of its spine. Surprisingly, the few snakes that eat only other snakes are harmless burrowing snakes which eat other smaller harmless burrowing snakes. But Kingsnakes also eat other prey besides snakes. The Kingsnake is resistant to the rattlesnake's venom. The Kingsnake will then swallow it whole while still alive. It locates rattlesnakes at night by smell, then bites and coils around its prey, constricting it until the other snake is exhausted. Many snakes eat other snakes: Snakes are the ideal food for another snake as they fit easily and nicely inside the long body! The Kingsnake ( Lampropeltis getulus) is the among the best known for this. SOLE FOOD: Although snakes generally eat whatever is in abundance, there are some of the few fascinating specialists. This suggests that the explosion in mammal diversity in the Tertiary Era may have led to the diversity in snakes. Snakes that eat non-mammals are usually too small or too slow to catch mammals. Their methods of killing (constriction and venom) works best on mammals. Most snakes prefer to eat mammals: usually preying on the most abundant and easiest to catch mammals, mostly rodents. Snakes may ignore prey too large or difficult to swallow whole. A big snake may pass over small prey which doesn't provide enough nutrition to offset the risk of catching it. Snakes make their calculations before catching prey. It eats mainly fish but apparently sometimes eats aquatic plants.īut snakes don't catch just any prey. ![]() The only snake that has been seen to eat plants is the Tentacled Snake ( Erpeton tentaculatus). Only a few snakes specialise in one type of prey. Being "cold-blooded" they don't have to eat often and can survive in places with irregular supplies of prey. Others change their diet as they grow eating small prey when they are young, and bigger prey as adults. One reason for their success is their ability to change their diet with the seasons, eating whatever is most plentiful. Being slow, snakes tend to eat whatever is in abundance. All snakes are predators! As a group, snakes eat the widest range of prey.
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