Snake behavior explored in depth
By By Otha Barham / outdoor editor
May 2, 2003
Maybe it was because a friend killed a rattlesnake on the dim trail I often walk on in the dark with no flashlight. It's the trail that leads to where a certain gobbler likes to roost.
Or maybe it was because I was sitting there in the pine straw just thinking, halfway down that trail waiting for the sky to lighten the ground or a turkey to gobble. Or maybe it was because I always think about snakes during turkey season when the nights get warm in April. Anyway, I got to wondering if snakes ever get lost.
You know, as slow as snakes have to move, if one should take a right turn off the top of a ridge instead of an intended left, when he or she arrived at the bottom and found itself in the wrong valley, it could be depressing, considering the hours it would take to crawl back to the top.
Now you take a snake out just gliding along. Where is it going? Is it really lost and don't know it, or does it know it is lost, or does it just plain not care? Snakes can't see very far from their low position so they can't have a visual goal. Do they just slither along hoping someone will step close enough with a big, juicy leg so they can sink their fangs into it?
Tough lives
Such endeavors as courting and seeking food must be frustrating for snakes. Crawling along for weeks with no one to say hello to could make for cheerless days and even warped personalities. And not knowing whether your next meal will be a frog or a mouse or a slimy tadpole is bound to generate anxiety. Snakes don't seem to have it so good.
I suppose boy snakes court girl snakes. Otherwise there wouldn't be any little snakes. Well, how do the two meet, I wonder? A guy snake could crawl the length of the equator and not find a girl snake of his species. You know, they could pass within feet of each other dozens of times and never know it if the grass was over two inches high.
When a male snake actually runs into a female snake of his kind (don't ask me how they can tell) I'll bet neither is fussy about the other's looks. Stuff like grooming, posture, nervous twitches and facial hair surely must become irrelevant. Even cultural tastes and religious preferences probably are not a factor in the developing relationships following these chance meetings between young unattached snakes.
And just what does a snake think about during all that crawling around? I mean besides young boy snakes thinking about young girl snakes and vice versa. What do mature snakes think about, what with no taxes and car payments and eight to five jobs and soccer practice to worry with?
And what about senior citizen snakes? What is on their aging minds since Zocor and trifocals and Metamucil and Ora-fix are not options?
No friends
One reason I got to worrying about snakes' mental health as I sat there in the pre-dawn woods listening to the owls and whippoorwill is that I can't think of a single person or animal that is friends with a snake. I know there are snake handlers and herpetologists who consort with snakes and like them I suppose, but I don't know any of these people. The masses basically look down on snakes.
Anyway, maybe snakes don't worry or think about much of anything at all except finding something to eat and a place to sleep and romancing members of the opposite sex which, as surmised above, they very rarely have occasion to do.
Come to think of it, I have a close lady associate who has said the same thing about her husband. I wonder if this means she thinks of him as a snake?
