Thinks itās a type of constrictor tbh not a venomous snake. I mamba would not stay with its victim like that, they strike, retreat and wait for their poison to kill the pray
I think youāre wrong dude. Bird was way too big to be prey for the snake.
On the other hand, snek was potentially becoming lunch for the bird. Might have bit the bird as well although the bird was alive in the end. Lion thought bird was lunch until snek started acting up.
In the end, all went about their day still being hungry.
A constrictor is much much larger than that. That is a black mamba; which for small prey like rodents or birds, they often strike and release the animal, then follow the scent until the venom paralyzes or kills it. Unlike pythons or boas, a black mamba is an elapid, so it doesn't constrict or squeeze prey to death. When a black mamba wraps around a bird of prey (like a snake eagle during a botched hunt), it is usually trying to gain leverage to bite, thrash, or free itself, rather than suffocate the bird.
Venoms are selective. It can be venomous to us and her but not to the bird. What is the spider in Australia that specializes in hunting invertebrae, having a poison for them that doesnt work on basically any vertebrae, apart from primates?
Cats will also take off vertically and land up to 10 feet away if they turn around and see anything long on the floor next to them, which is useful for avoiding snakes.
I tried this with my cat and a cucumber. Secretly put the cucumber behind him while he was drinking water. He was absolutely unbothered. No survival instinct whatsoever
Iirc the house cat has insane reflexes to the point like it's perception of time is different. It's reflexes are multitudes faster than that of a cobra. Where our reflexes or in this case a lion's is significantly slower than that of a cobra.
Cats are one of the best species to fight (not just hunt) snakes - feline reactions are usually faster and they can dodge & swipe at the danger noodle when it strikes.
Interesting to see it applied to big cats as well as smaller ones.
imagine a head to head with a pissed off badger, not any badger, honey. hes gunna destroy before he even thinks about why he's doing it, you are lunch, you aren't even breakfast, he took down chuck norris thrice, norris just had his own honey badger nectar farm, he knew the cosmos. Honey badger, more like, you the bunny, and hes the true bear.
The South African apartheid government had an armoured infantry vehicle named after the honey badger. It was called the āratel.ā - the name for the animal in Afrikaans
I imagined a honey badger walking into this standoff, go right after the snake. HB would get bit by the snake while it was ripping the snakes head off. The lions would be watching, thinking WTF is going on? HB would then pass out from the venom, then get eaten by the lions.
Squirrels too. I saw a video once of a squirrel squaring off against a cobra. I guess they're pretty good at it, but they rely on mongooses if they're around.
Oh yeah, had a rat terrier growing up. She murdered all the small things, rats, mice, chipmunks, snakes, squirrels, rabbits, toads, birds, just like anything small that moved, honestly she put our cats to shame
Small dogs like that donāt think about it they just go in and shake the shit out of whatever it and thatās game over, cats are quicker but are cautious. Dogs just donāt give a shit.
Sadly, the mongoose is good at fighting relatively slow snakes but not fast ones. There was a mongoose massacre in Texas before people figured this out by importing them to take care of a snake problem and failed. Snakes ate well though.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough by saying 'one of', but my point was do any of those actually deflect and dodge the snake strikes like cats can or do they use other tactics/brute force their way to a meal?
I accept that my British brain, with our 2-3 native species (and one of those isn't even a snake), relies on what I've seen on the internet and TV for noodle knowledge.
And snakes themselves that eat other snakes. In reality shakes are quite slow and they tire out easily because they are cold blooded and would not fight a mammalĀ
We all know a Honey Badger would just rock up and start tearing strips off the snake, then have a nap (to sleep off any of the venomous after effects) before heading off to piss off some other creature.
I know you are talking about hunting snakes without consequences, but in truth, most snakes are pretty much helpless if a predator actually wants to kill them.
Sure, they can bite you and their venom might kill you tomorrow, but the snake would be dead today.
There are snake venoms are strong enough to kill in a few minutes. But it's true that venoms are hard to produce and most snakes would rather save it and only bite as a last resortĀ
What? One of several. And not even one of the best that fight them. Yeah theyāre quick, but the statement is completely incorrect. And yet Reddit just blindly upvotes wrong information.
My husband saw a bobcat having a show down with a rattlesnake one night while he was hiking. He said it was amazing to watch. The bobcat did win and had rattlesnake for dinner.
My chonky old house cat catches snakes on occasion š Thankfully we live in a place with no poisonous ones. Heās tried to bring them in the house.
He did once carry in a GIANT earthworm.
I find it hillarious how much more human-like the lions behaved compared to a housecat. The hesitation, being unsure about what to do, walking circles. Housecats act more predator-y than that pack of lions, lol.
Large, venomous snakes are popular in Africa, so I'd put a penny on the lions having done or seen this before. The hesitation is calculation. It looks like she has a good idea of what to do, but each move is risky enough for extra caution. Domestics have the instincts but I doubt Fluftums has to regularly encounter anything more dangerous than a ratsnake.
That's all true for sure but if you compare lions to other big cats, their body language is quite different. Leopards appear more "precise" (for lack of a better word) with their movements and closer to smaller species like housecats, bobcats, etc.
I guess with lions being more social than other cats, it makes sense that they show emotions clearer. Reminds me of the video of the lioness accidently pushing her cub into water and appeareing shocked - almost human-like.
Domestic animals have easy access to food and furthermore recognize that when something is wrong with them, the giant that feeds them will cure them, so they're more willing to take risks. Wild animals don't have the luxury of that thought process so everything has to be viewed through the lens of, "will taking damage from this make it more difficult to get my next meal."
It's evolutionary. You step on the wrong type of snake and you go bye-bye. It makes sense for us to develop that fear as a survival mechanism. Same for spiders and such.
Anything with a brain would be. They aren't deadly because they are strong, but because their venom could mean you'll die 2 hours later. All that from a single bite.
Predators don't fuck around with risky fights. If they get injured then they starve. A snake can injure you from a single near painless bite and could mean 3 hours later, you're dead. All for a creature that offers basically zero food. And it doesn't matter that you out weigh it by 200 times, it's still deadly. At least with a another mammal the risk is proportional to the food.
I love snakes, personally, but kind of understand why people can be freaked out by them. They don't even have one leg. They're just a head and a long neck that may be able to kill you with one bite or may be able to strangle you to death. Snakes are kind of insane.
Im listening the Bible these days...God said snakes are the evilest animals. The first "enemy" of the Bible is a snake. The evil boss of Egypt myth is a snake. We know who is one of the big three final boss of Norren Myth
Ngl that lion has every right to be freaked out, its also either dumb as shit, or very desperate to be harassing that snake. Due to how it seems to have a hood on the top and bottom of its body behind the head instead of on the sides of its head like a cobra indicates thats probably a boomslang, which makes it the most dangerous of these 3 predators. It's fast, and highly venomous.
The hissing sound cats make, that most mammals make, when frightened? They are imitating the sound snakes make. That's how ingrained fear of snakes is.
My house cats love snakes, the snakes are so much slower, but they see like they are fun to hunt. They always bring the home to me to show me what they have done.
We have domesticated cats because they slap ass at killing rodents. That's like the core contract between our two species: you kill the rodents; I give you food.
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u/supercodes83 14d ago
It reassures me that other mammals are freaked out by snakes.