I thought it was interesting how they move, nothing we have does that. Nature is wondrous really, the way everything seems to work out...Except when humans fuck it up.
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I thought it was interesting how they move, nothing we have does that. Nature is wondrous really, the way everything seems to work out...Except when humans fuck it up.
Yeah. Believe it or not, this really started out to be a rant about the dickheads in the desert and I bailed to the snakes :) You can pretty well bet I'll get to the dickheads...
The sidewinder movement is an evolution based on hot sand. They get their entire body off of it every stroke.
Desert dickheads, city dickheads, work dick heads, outback dickeads...Everywhere dickheads. Seems dickhead is the new black these days. I'll look out for your post.
It took me a while to find this video, but you really need to see this @galenkp. I have photographic proof that the rat doesn't always get away...That's pretty cool. I always marvel at how well they film these things. Thanks for the video.
You know, I was once in a situation where I had to administer a few kicks myself...I could have done with kangaroo rat skills at that point but had to make G-dog skills work as best they could. It worked out although I didn't look quite as cool as that rat! :)
It's amazing to me how fast they can react. That rattlesnake strike is FAST. I have pictures of a sidewinder waiting for a rat to die before eating breakfast. I saw the rat make his last little hop.
Human's wouldn't stand much chance, but like you say, probably unlikely it would bite something it couldn't eat. Poor little rats though.
Kangaroo Rats are just cool, no doubt about it. But they breed like rats. Right now there are too many for the rapidly depleting food, the snakes normally keep them in check but something happened to a large fraction of the sidewinders this year. Too many rodents. We could really use some rain to get stuff growing in the desert again....