Floods displace snakes, too, and many are swept into the plains from the hills by swollen rivers whence they struggle to find new ‘thikanas’ or habitat grids. “I dispatched my nephew, Bahadur Khan, to rescue the Pinjore snake. When he put her in the rescue bag, she delivered nine eggs. She was dark as a Spectacled cobra and I initially thought her either to be actually one or a new species for the region. But when I looked carefully, I saw dark bars under her eyes (or the Rat snake’s moustache-like stripes), which are distinguishing marks for the non-venomous Rat snake also known as the Dhaman or Ghodha pachaad in local languages. I inserted the eggs shallowly in loose soil in an elevated, dry jungle spot and released the mother next to them,” the Tricity’s veteran snake-rescue expert, Salim Khan, told TOI.
The stricken mother, granted a fresh lease of life, would not know that the globe was marking ‘World Snake Day’ on July 16, an annual event designed to raise awareness about these misconceived and victimised creatures subject to the most audacious flights of human imagination and loony superstition. Fortunately, more snakes are rescued nowadays than simply bashed to pulp by ignorant, intolerant humans acting on the adage, ‘a good snake is a dead snake’.
Rat snakes deliver eggs while the Russell’s viper, also found in the Tricity region, “bear living young, actually incubating the eggs internally”, according to legendary herpetologist Rom Whitaker. While a King Cobra female makes an elaborate “nest” of leaves on the ground where she delivers eggs and incubates them, Rat snake and Spectacled cobra mothers make frequent visits to the niche spot or hole or soil scrape where they laid eggs. According to Whitaker, a Rat snake can lay anywhere between 8-22 eggs so the Pinjore one was within those limits with nine to her credit. Rat snakes can grow to extraordinary lengths, reaching in exceptional specimens nearly 12 feet! The male deserts the female snake after mating while the mother herself will leave her hatchlings to their fate once they emerge from eggs. Delving on a fascinating aspect of mating erotica that precedes the production of eggs, Whitaker stated that the “male Rat snake grabs his prospective mate on her mid-body and neck with his jaws and arouses her by making rhythmic movements along the length of her body”. Rat snakes even mate on trees, being climbers par excellence vining up the high branches to indulge in an uninterrupted bout of passionate entwinement. Rat snakes have been observed mating while immersing themselves partially in a crack in the earth (to hide from nosey parkers) and letting off an odour akin to rotting meat! Doubtless, to the mating Rat snakes, the odour would carry the sex appeal of sensuous perfume!
Delving on the ‘Kamasutra’ of coupling snakes in general, Whitaker told the TOI: “When snakes mate, they may release pheromones from cloacal ‘musk glands’ which can be pungent, sweet or downright nasty smelling. Mating can go on for hours and the set remains attached partly due to the entwinement and partly to the paired penis of a snake (called hemipenes). The hemipenes is covered with spines, knobs, branches and other ornamentation which keeps it firmly in place once inserted into the female’s cloacal reproductive tract. In some species, like anacondas and pythons, a number of males may wrap themselves around a reproductive female forming a large ball of snakes. How she decides which one to mate with is still a mystery”! Whitaker informed this author.
