Witnessing A Slithery Act Of Predation

Id Eco Super-Eco

6 years ago

For anyone that is a fan of nature there is one kind of dark wildlife interaction that is truly an attention grabber – animals humping.

No no no!!!

Animals taking a dump.

NO NO NO!!!

It’s witnessing an act of predation that REALLY grabs our attention.

My spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word predation so here is the definition. In this instance I’m speaking of definition #1. WTF on #2?!! I’m pretty sure that anyone can be a victim.

The fascination with predators and predation comes from deep within our lizard brains. We are hardwired to fear becoming food. That primal hardwiring lights up when we see predators and predation.

Don’t believe me? Check out the impression analytics on my Instagram posts. They are all predators and most of them eat humans.

264 – Caribbean reef shark feeding frenzy, 258 – bull shark coming for my GoPro, 228 – great white shark, 215 – leopard licking a recent zebra foal kill, 210 – Atlantic spotted dolphin (still a predator despite being nice to people), 205 – great white shark missing the bait, 203 – bull shark coming in close, 203 – great white shark fin, 202 – great white shark cruising around, 192 – a gross man-ape being a d-bag, 190 – water moccasin telling me to get the F away from it, 189 – great white shark hammering a tuna head. All predators. All of them!

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And that brings me to an enthralling act of predation that recently lit up my own lizard brain. I witnessed a northern water snake (nerodia sipedon) going gangsta on a fish resulting in a cold blooded (literally) murder.

Here is the slithery murdering son of a bitch!

To get these shots I had to wait for the snake to get distracted, crawl through pain inflicting rocks, and slowly move closer. Worth it!

People often mistake the northern water snake for the poisonous copperhead. No poison here with this species. An easy identifier that this is a water snake and not a copperhead is the circular iris.

When I found Slithery McGee it was perched on some rocks overlooking a creek. Slithery was throwing off a dead-eyed 1,000 yard stare into the water with its tongue in full flickering mode. So much flickering.

I knew that focused behavior meant that something in the water was about to get its 1-8-7 ticket punched. And that is exactly what happened.

Slithery slipped beneath the surface of the water for several minutes. The water was dark, but I could make out the coils of the snake writhing. So much writhing!

A life and death battle between Slithery and some unknown combatant was definitely transpiring in the murk. Then, Slithery emerged with a grim fishy prize…

When the snake finally surfaced the fish was already dead. The coup de grace was performed underwater in the murk. What a horrible way to go.

With the murdering out of the way it was time for Slithery to eat this dead bastard. The dark theatre of Slithery expanding its mandible to swallow the fish whole began.

That fish is WAY wider than the snake’s mouth

No problem on the width – snakes have that expandable mandible to take care of big business.

Slithery struggled to swallow the wide fish while in the water. It retreated to land where it initially launched its attack on the fish. There, in the dry rocks, it was able to get anchored and the swallowing escalated.

Slowly the fish began to disappear as the snake’s mouth expanded wider and wider.

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In mid-swallow I recognized that Slithery had become aware of my presence.

I was worried that out of fear of me Slithery would abandon its meal and flee. There was no reason for it to forego its meal and for a fish to have died for nothing. So, I slunk off into the shrubbery from whence I came leaving Slithery to its grim necessity.

Are you still reading this article? Yeah, maybe your lizard brain was also triggered by this act of predation. Don’t feel badly for being captivated by this ghastliness. It’s part of our programming.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to channel my inner-Slithery and swallow some Arby’s whole. The people in this restaurant will get their own lizard brains tickled by this spectacle and will likely talk about this moment for the rest of their lives. Mainly because I’m not wearing pants.

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