On March 10, 2023, researchers wandering round a pure reserve in western Colombia stumbled upon two coral snakes tussling over a caecilian. This epic battle of worm v. worm v. worm was documented within the journal Herpetozoa. The snakes gripped their hapless prey with their mouths and tugged on the amphibian in reverse instructions, often twisting their complete our bodies to take care of their maintain and even biting the pinnacle of their competitor. The battle lasted 17 minutes, throughout which period Defector was lucky sufficient to gather statements from each predators. Here, the 2 snakes current their instances.
Point: I Was Here First, By A Snake
As a red-tailed coral snake—Micrurus mipartitus when you’re a pedant—I dwell a easy life. I’m recognized to slither round South and Central America, however my favourite spots to hit up are espresso and sugarcane fields in Colombia. I develop as much as 4 ft however I’m slightly slender, which lets me slip in between weeds, fallen leaves, and grasses principally with out detection. After all, I solely come out at evening.
The evening of March 10, nonetheless, I had deserted my agricultural loitering and made my means into the gorgeous rainforest of the Valle del Cauca. My journey was lengthy, and I had grown hungry. I started looking for meals. Perhaps I’d discover a juicy frog, a flavorful lizard, or my favourite deal with of all—the slimy, limbless, usually eyeless amphibians referred to as caecilians. They look uncannily like me, a snake, which implies they’re exceedingly satisfying to swallow and do not create any of the unseemly bumps and lumps that another prey, equivalent to frogs and lizards, create in my lithe physique. Plus, they’re coated on this scrumptious glaze that researchers name mucus. They slime themselves in snot when attempting to flee from predators like me, but when I handle to maintain my grip on them, it is like looking a pancake that is simply drizzled itself in maple syrup. Yum!
So there I used to be, among the many rain-slicked rocks of the rainforest, waving my little tongue within the air to sense for airborne chemical substances which may reveal my prey’s hiding spots. Suddenly, there it was: the mouthwatering scent of a caecilian! My tempo quickened and in a couple of minutes I’d snagged my plump and shiny prize in my fangs. The pitiful caecilian tried to wrest itself from my grasp, however its makes an attempt had been futile. A caecilian is not any match for a snake! I had but to swallow my prey, however my thoughts flooded, Ratatouille-style, with the symphony of flavors I’d quickly experience. I had scarcely closed my eyes for a second to immerse myself on this imagining after I felt a tug from my caecilian. When I appeared, I noticed the tug had come not from my meal however from my kin, one other red-tailed coral snake! I gasped earlier than realizing that, as a limbless predator, I need to reserve my mouth for biting. But inside, I fumed. Is there no honor amongst predators?
Stealing meals from one other animal is the remit of such lowly creatures as birds, lizards, turtles, and the even lowlier invertebrates. I’ve heard of these loathed polar birds referred to as skuas that lie in await different birds to complete their meals solely to burst out and scare them, forcing the chicken to regurgitate its meals, which the skua shortly slurps up. Call me a prude, however I discover that disgusting! The follow is named kleptoparasitism, which is a phrase with frankly offensive mouthfeel. But we’re not horrible birds; we’re lovely snakes, with an ethical code all our personal. We are highly effective, wily hunters. We seize our personal meals. We take down prey a lot bigger than ourselves. Why, as a snake, would you stoop to stealing?
If we descend to such petty crimes, we’ll lose our standing as a feared and revered animal the world over. We will not be the face of drugs, illness, rebirth, fertility, eternity, and the common cycle of life, dying, and rebirth. Would you slightly be the face of backstabbing your individual mate behind his again? Would you slightly be a logo of petty theft, or, because the French say, un petit larceny? Us snakes should stick collectively, and stealing my lunch was an act of betrayal most out of character for our misunderstood, noble species.
Counterpoint: In A World That Hates Us, We Would Be Fools To Adhere To Some Antediluvian Sense of Intraspecies Morality, By Another Snake
You say you had been hungry; what if I used to be hungrier? You say you had been there first, however that’s solely your phrase in opposition to mine. The video the researchers took solely started as we had been already engaged in our tug-of-war. When an argument is between two snakes, who’s a jury extra more likely to imagine? Perhaps a jury of our friends might determine this pretty, however till a snake can develop into a lawyer, the readers of this weblog are actually not our friends. Let me ask you this: Why are you, a snake, so involved with the opinion of people? What are you attempting to show?
You say snakes are a logo of drugs, rebirth, eternity. Aren’t we additionally symbols of dying, destruction, poison, and evil? Aren’t snakes reviled by people all over the world? When individuals see us, they worry and hate us. They usually attempt to kill us, even when we’re not a species that has invaded a local ecosystem. Have you ever heard the saying, “The solely good snake is a lifeless snake”? How might you ever search approval from a species that talks about us in such a horrible means? Why are you, a snake, prostrating your self to a different species {that a} reticulated python might swallow entire? Embarrassing!
Kleptoparasitism is a phrase that individuals invented to pathologize what’s, for us, simply one other mode of looking. And even when we had been to function on their phrases, one hungry snake stealing meals from one other appears way more ethical to me than one thing like wire fraud, conspiracy, or the carceral system—is that this not the plot of the 2012 human documentary movie Les Misérables, starring Amanda Seyfried, good friend to all snakes? Even if I steal a caecilian from you, I’m nonetheless placing within the onerous work of capturing prey—on this case, I’m simply capturing it from you.
This could be onerous to listen to, however I perceive how you’re feeling. I, too, have been a hungry snake alone on the planet. But if you wish to be indignant, be indignant on the world individuals created that has disrupted our pure environments such that we are actually mostly discovered on agricultural land—a land that provides a bounty of prey but additionally places us in direct hazard of being found, and killed, by the individuals who steward such land. Our ancestors had no notion of agriculture. They slithered underneath the fallen twigs and sodden, papery leaves of the rainforest ground. Now that you’ve left the espresso farm and have taken refuge on this pure reserve, I welcome you, snake-to-snake, as a good friend. I’m glad to know you. We snakes, and—although it pains me to say it—caecilians, too, are joined collectively in an uphill battle for the disappearing rainforests we as soon as referred to as home. So go forth with my blessing and hunt one other caecilian. And if upon ensnaring your recent prey you’re feeling one other tug and see my crimson and smiling face, know that I think about it an honor to battle you on your prey. Us lazy snakes need to eat, too.
Counter-Counterpoint, By The Caecilian
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