A Slithering Rendezvous

Confronting the Misconceptions of Serpents

Many people don’t like snakes. On an intellectual level, I can understand where this comes from. Some snakes are quite dangerous. A bite from certain venomous snakes can be extremely painful, or even deadly. Thus, a fear of snakes would have been an adaptive trait in developing human populations. Unfortunately, this means that people tend to overreact to a group of animals that are mostly harmless and often beneficial (many species of snakes eat rodents that could be considered pests).

The two individuals in the picture above are black racers, Coluber constrictor, one of the more common non-venomous snakes seem in the Southeastern United States. When I relate the cliché that an animal is more frightened of you than you are of it, this particular snake often comes to my mind. Any kind of human proximity to an individual will often cause a black racer to retreat into the nearest undergrowth at high speed (their common name is apt given how quickly they can move).

Usually, when you spot a black racer, it is sunning itself during the day. They do this for the same reason other reptiles bask, to regulate their body temperature. However, they tend to flee when approached. It is sometimes hard for us to remember that we (humans) are large animals, which other, smaller species can view as predators. Even most venomous snakes will prefer to retreat if given the option (though their are some exceptions, the cottonmouth or water moccasin, Agkistrodon piscivorus, is known to be highly territorial and will often stand its ground). I was surprised, then, when the two snakes shown above did not immediately flee and I was able to take several pictures and a short video.

Of course, the reason for this odd behavior was quite apparent to me. I had walked up to these snakes while they were in the process of mating. I could tell this was the case because of their intertwined tails. The reproductive organs of reptiles are present near their tails at a universal opening called the cloaca. The evolutionary urge to procreate and pass on ones genes to the next generation had overridden some of the racers’ normal instincts. This wasn’t a completely foreign concept, either. In the sea turtle research community, we have known for years that female sea turtles will go into a type of ‘trance’ during the nesting process and become less reactive to outside stimuli. However, the reaction of the racers was not as pronounced. As I got closer to take the video, it became obvious that they were still aware of my presence. Shortly after, I got a bit too close and they moved off to the side of the walkway where I initially encountered them.

Despite this, I was certain that this was the closest I had ever gotten to a black racer before, and the longest time that one had stayed still and not run away. Looking back through all of my wildlife photographs, I could not find a single one of this kind of snake in the wild, despite how often I had seen them. The snake had never stayed around long enough for me to get a picture.

Overall, one of the things I would like to convey to others with these stories is my excitement about certain types of animals that seem to be neglected or shunned by the wider human world. Snakes are one of those. They are fascinating creatures, related to lizards but have lost their limbs (though some species still have remnants of a rudimentary pelvis). You’re first reaction to being asked to touch a snake might be that it would be slimy. In fact, being reptiles, their skin is made of overlapping scales of keratin (the same material in human hair and fingernails) and so they do not have external glands. This means that they cannot be slimy and are instead quite dry.

I feel very fortunate to have witnessed this pair of racers, because it also shows how most species of snakes are not aggressive, even when interrupted during reproduction. The first instinct of such an animal is to flee, because it is at an enormous size disadvantage. Think about how much damage a non-venomous snake could do to you. Then picture how badly you could hurt it if you really wanted to (and were able to catch it). It’s not really a fair fight, is it? Even a venomous snake would rather not have to use that venom defensively, as its primary function is for killing prey and producing the venom requires both time and energy.

I don’t really believe that facts and stories alone can completely overcome millennia of evolutionary conditioning, but I hope that they can contribute to a gradual increasing acceptance of some of the more ‘hated’ groups of animals. I’ve already mentioned the consequences of disrupting natural systems by removing key elements. We all need to learn to live with the animals we fear, or otherwise figure out how to pick up the pieces of a shattered system if we can’t.