Many people will be scared into a cold sweat when they see snakes, and the snake's slippery appearance and sharp fangs always make people smell and change. In nature, many ferocious animals have to give in to snakes, the bottomless mouth of the python can swallow a whole cow and deer whole, and in 2017, a reticulated python in Indonesia ruthlessly devoured an adult male weighing more than 100 pounds.
Snakes, as synonymous with mystery and ruthlessness, dare not provoke yellow eels at will, and may not even be able to beat them, is this really the case? And why?
Don't look at the resemblance of yellow eels and snakes, it's not common for them to meet and fight.
Yellow eels are famous "nocturnal warriors", they stay quietly in their burrows during the day, and when night falls, the eels come out to move. They like to be stuck in the mud and often live in the silty bottom of rice fields, ponds, and streams, which is because they have the ability to "make holes", they can drill holes in humus mud, the front half of the body is erect, the snout segment sticks out of the water, and uses the **folds of the mouth to breathe.
Different snakes have different diurnal habits, and those who like to be active during the day are called diurnal snakes. Nocturnal snakes that prefer to be reclusive during the day and move at night are called nocturnal snakes, and there are also morning and dusk snakes that prefer to move in low light. It is the nocturnal snake that may encounter the yellow eel, such as the krait, the silver krait, the soldering iron head, etc.
Snakes are divided into two categories based on their survival habits: land snakes and water snakes. Land snakes are usually found in places such as damp, overgrown grass, forests or rocky piles, and generally do not haunt waters, while water snakes can move freely in the water and may encounter yellow eels.
If a snake meets a yellow eel, will the snake eat the yellow eel?
Snakes are carnivorous animals that like to eat mice, frogs, fish, etc., and the yellow eel, as a fish, is naturally included in the snake's diet. Some water snakes are good at fishing, there is a peculiar water snake in Southeast Asia called fishing snake, as the name suggests, the fishing snake has superb fishing skills, its mouth and nose have fleshy growths, like bait to lure fish and small shrimp to the door, and then quickly open the mouth to bite and inject venom.
However, although snakes eat fish, they rarely eat yellow eels, why is that?
In the summer of 2018, after a torrential rain in the south, several rural children went to the reservoir to catch yellow eels, and unexpectedly saw a red-spotted snake catching a yellow eel. The eel was about the same size as the snake, and the eel struggled as hard as it could, but it was eventually caught by the snake.
The red-spotted snake first bit the body of the yellow eel with its fangs, wrapped its soft limbs around the yellow eel, and waited patiently for a while before gradually starting to devour the yellow eel, and after eating, its body was twice as large as before.
When they thought that this was the end of the matter, the next day they were surprised to see that the snake was still motionless, and one of the children picked the snake's body with a bamboo pole on a whim, only to find that the red-spotted snake was dead and its body was completely stiff.
There is a saying that says, "Snakes eat yellow eels - look for death." This means that if the snake eats the eel, it will cause them to die together, although the snake is very aggressive, but generally does not easily provoke the eel, why is this?
Snakes are particularly picky about the living environment, they are cold-blooded animals, and the body does not have a perfect body temperature regulation mechanism, so the temperature of the living environment is very important for snakes, and the temperature suitable for snakes to survive is between 20-30.
However, the vitality of the yellow eel is extremely tenacious, as long as there is a small pond, the yellow eel can live, they are also very hungry, can go months without food. Even after a heavy rain, you will find that many yellow eels have sprung up in the originally dry mud, because the reproduction ability and survival ability of yellow eels are very strong, their seeds may remain in the soil, and when they encounter water, the yellow eel seeds will slowly grow.
If they really meet like the red-spotted snake and the yellow eel, the snake that is picky about the environment will go to an unfamiliar territory and meet the tenacious yellow eel, and its combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced. The flexible posture and slippery ** of the yellow eel always make them "the dragon sees the head but not the tail", and the yellow eel that protects the cub is more lethal than usual, so the snake not only does not have an advantage when encountering the yellow eel, but may even be killed by the yellow eel.
Even if the snake wins the battle, it is very likely that the yellow eel will be threatened by its life, and it will die in the mud pond like the unlucky red-spotted snake.
Snakes have a very strong digestive function, and after swallowing prey several times their size, they can do it without leaving even a bone. After swallowing, the snake will continue to crawl, through the friction between the stomach and the ground to speed up the metabolism in the body, and at the same time increase the body temperature, maintain the activity of digestive enzymes, and help digest the food swallowed into the body.
Even so, the snake has a hard time digesting the yellow eel, which is about its size. Yellow eel and snake are cylindrical and elongated, but the yellow eel has a hard spine in its body, which is the key to its movement, and it is difficult for snakes to digest after eating.
Although snakes rarely eat eels, we cannot conclude that eels are the nemesis of snakes, or that snakes are afraid of eels because of this. Because, the snake's food chain is above the yellow eel, and the overall strength is stronger than the yellow eel, although the snake does not need to ask for trouble, but when they meet, the snake still has the upper hand and the initiative. Some researchers have proved from other angles that the probability of a snake dying after eating a yellow eel is actually very small.
Snakes that hunt eels usually release venom and then wrap their bodies around the eel until the eel remains motionless, confirming that the eel is dead. When the eel is no longer alive, the snake swallows the eel whole, and the muscles in the cavity slowly wriggle, squeezing the eel's body, and the eel's hard spine may be compressed and squeezed off in the process, which naturally does not hurt the snake's life.
Among the more than 3,000 species of snakes known in the world, 15% are venomous, and the vicious cobra even eats its relatives and wives, and the Australian inland Taipan snake, which is famous for its ferocity, can easily kill 100,000 rats or 100 people with a mouthful of venom.
In a remote village in the southern Philippines, there is a strange scene of "snakes eating snakes": a three-meter-long cobra sprays venom at a two-meter-long python, poisons it to death, and swallows it alive. After eating, the cobra's belly bulged like a huge pillar.
The venom of the cobra has a neurotoxin, which can destroy the nervous system of the opponent and paralyze the opponent's muscles. When a cobra encounters a python that is about the same size as itself, it uses its stronger ability to release venom to kill it, which is also the ability that the venomous snake uses when killing the yellow eel.
Yellow eels are the "exclusive prey" of these weird poisonous snakes, yellow eels have a smooth mucous membrane on the body surface, **smooth, in the face of slippery yellow eels, non-venomous snakes are usually helpless. The method of non-venomous snakes to hunt and kill prey is usually to bite the prey to death, and then entangle and strangle, but the yellow eel obviously can't catch and bite, and the way of hunting and killing non-venomous snakes is naturally ineffective.
Vipers can use their fangs to release venom, causing paralysis and death of the eel. There are small holes at the top of the fangs of venomous snakes, and there are poison sacs at the root that store venom, and when they bite something, they will squeeze the venom sacs and release venom from the tips of the teeth, quickly killing the yellow eel.
There are some snakes that like to swim and are often in the water, such as common water snakes, mud snakes, and so on. These snakes that live in the water coincide with the living space of the yellow eel, and like to soak in the water in groups, and there is no problem of not adapting to the underwater environment. In addition to preying on a variety of freshwater trash fish and loaches, yellow eels and various frogs also feed on them.
In addition, some larger snakes can also digest yellow eels better because they have a larger esophagus and stomach and stronger digestion ability.
Therefore, the statement that the yellow eel is the nemesis of the snake is not very accurate, although the yellow eel may cause some trouble to the snake, but they always have a gap in strength, more often, the yellow eel and the snake are safe, each holding their own side of the world.