Heterodon platirhinos or the Eastern Hognose snake, in this case seen in its dark coloring is well known for not biting humans, and rather when threatened puts on a display as seen in the video above. During this show the snake will flatten its head in a cobra-like fashion, take large breathes that puff out its body to a larger size, and hisses plentifully on exhalation, thus giving it the colloquial name of Puff adder.
This show can also contain some quick darting of the head to make it seem like the creature will bite when in reality they very rarely do, and even then typically won't cause much damage due to their hindfangs. While the snakes are related to cobras, and they have venom, there are very unlikely to strike and as such our group felt fairly safe within relatively small distance of the predator. The second part of the show typically put on by hognose snakes that we didn't see as a group was playing dead, where it would roll over on its back, hang its mouth open, and writhe for a bit before going still. The snake will also correct itself if turned back onto its belly, and go through the writhing portion again before attaining its "dead" posture.
Apart from the animal's upturned "hog" nose, the behavior of the snake ought to quickly showcase what family it is in. From there the Eastern Hognose has more variation in coloring than the Northern or Western and can be uniformly dark as the one we saw or spotted with browns, and blacks with either tan or brown background coloring. The upturned point of the nose on the Eastern Hognose is the least exaggerated of the three species, but the clearer indication is the lighter coloration on the underside of the snake especially at the tail.The snake mostly eats toads, and it can dig them up from the ground using its upturned snout. The Eastern Hognose has a very large range including nearly all of the eastern and gulf coast of the United States and going inland till stopping around the middle of Texas, but still reaching all the way up till Wisconsin. The snake can be found in a range of environments, but can primarily be found in sandy areas due to its favorite prey. As seen by our group the snake can be found in forest, though this was close to sand, mud, and wetland in general, likely a good place to find toads. The Eastern Hognose Snake can grow typically between 20-33 in. with the individual we found standing at around two feet long.
With a modicum of petting the snake as it left, our first sighting of the day invigorated us for the next hours including a rattlesnake, snapping turtle, a slider, and plenty of evidence of other turtle activity.
3 comments:
This is my favorite snake and I am so glad we got to see one! This snake was displayed the common behavior of its Family Dipsadidae (rear-fanged snakes). The most dramatic of the Family, Heterodon seemed to be getting a tip from Shakespear. They start out by flattening their heads, as if to be mimicking Crotalidae and move their tails amongst the leaves to try and replicate the sound and movement of Crotalus. I was a little bummed out, however, that he didn't play dead. It is like the end scene of Hamlet, where the snake flips its upper body upside down. So fun to watch. I regret not trying to capture it, however, the amount of time and energy spent going through his warning and mimicking was probably too high already.
Awesome video!
This is awesome. Our group has only seen black racers, a few cottonmouths, and one ribbon snake. I wish I had seen the hognose. Did anyone try to pick it up? I wonder if it would try to play dead if you attempted to pick it up or if it would resort to biting. Great find!
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