Saw this little cute fella from our visits to the pet store in Ikano. Tiny snake of say not exceeding 2 months old and rough estimate the length of my middle finger.
This sparks my new interest in this specie; as our last visit on Wednesday to get some much needed mice supply for Floppie.
Prior to this I noticed this small little dynamite being active in slitering about its cage; of course the size of it helps in scoring points in the cute-ness factor, hence my attention.
The hognose.
What little I know of this snake was from a character name in KOEI's Warriors Orochi series (they named all the weak subordinates of the titular villain by names of non-venomous snakes) and of course when I read the tag for it; it raised an eyebrow as they're charging RM550 for this little fella.
But I got the kicks out of this infatuation only the day after when I happened to wiki the said snake.
source:wikipedia
The hognose snake is a type of colubrid snake characterized by an upturned snout. They are notorious for playing dead when threatened. The hognose snakes consist of three distantly related genera that are artificially grouped together by the "hognose" common name.
Behavior - When threatened, hognose snakes will flatten their necks and raise their heads off the ground, like a cobra, and hiss. They may sometimes feign strikes, but are not apt to bite. This behaviour has earned them several nicknames, such as "puff adder", "blowing adder", "flathead", "spreadhead", "spreading adder" or "hissing adder". Note, though, the nickname "puff adder" is only a nickname, and is not scientifically correct. There is a highly venomous viper from Africa called the puff adder, Bitis arietans.
If this threat display does not work to deter a would-be predator, hognose snakes will often roll onto their back and play dead, going so far as to emit a foul musk and fecal matter from their cloaca and let their tongue hang out of their mouth, sometimes accompanied by small droplets of blood. If they are rolled upright while in this state, they will often roll back as if insisting they really are dead. It has been observed that the snake, while appearing to be dead, will still watch the animal that caused the death pose. The snake will 'resurrect' sooner if the threat is looking away from it than if the threat is looking at the snake.
*skip to 0:29 for the action*
Cute.
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| Honduran Milk Snake |
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| Florida King Snake |
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| our lil tiny guy - Hognose |
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| some tortoise spreading eagle nonsense |
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| Prairie Dog |
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| whut-chu-looking-at? |