Heard something interesting about snakes today

The first time I encountered rattlesnakes was when we built a house in a valley that had only had grazing cattle in it for the past 50 years.

The valley was full of rattlers.

They are amazing creatures. They don't strike in a casual fashion. They hurl their head with all of their might and their mouths wide open. They don't bite. Their fangs are pointed straight out. If they stick you the follow on force of their flying head squeezes those poison glands and they blast you a good one.

They are the singular toughest creatures I have ever come across in my life. You could run one over with a car and unless you crushed his head they would strike with whatever was left. I tried killing them with bullets from a .45 but it was not quick enough and never certain.

I finally discovered that a round of CCI birdshot from a .45 from about 3 feet would turn them to stone. They would get so much nervous system damage that they would be paralyzed.

It would not surprise me at all to hear they bruised what ever they hit. The big ones could hit you from a foot to a foot an a half away easily.

Yes,even a small snake say,3-4 feet can strike hard enough to bruise.I friend has a small python that,upon striking him,left a few small puncture wounds & the sensation of catching a fastball w/o a glove.Oh yeah,it bruised up real nice too.

A truly large snake,15 feet plus,can REALLY wreck your day.

Remember,a non-venemous snake has to either set its teeth in the prey animal which might very well be trying to escape.OR,in the case of a venemous snake,it has to catch the prey,puncture the prey & inject the venom.All in a micro-second.Speed kills,eh?

Mossy,

Are you saying that the snakes bit through the snake boots or the fangs did not punture the skin? It's not clear to me from your post.

brad cook

They would get so much nervous system damage that they would be paralyzed.

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Tell that to the timber rattler I shot this summer with a 38spec shotshell. It split his head wide open, yet he continued to squirm. I cut his head off with a shovel and he would squirm whenever you touched him. Twice, well after removing his head, someone would pick him up by the tail only to be struck by the headless snake (as if it were going to bite you). This happened to me as well. It took a good two hours for all of the "reflex" activity to dissipate.

His skin is now dried and mounted to a board in my office.

Chris

Let's see, I doubt that a snake is going to be producing much of a bruise by simply striking snake boots. The boots are going to absorb much of the impact and distribute it over a much larger area than if the snake had struck bare skin.

41mag gave an example of a non-poisonous bite that caused bruising. It is not clear, however, if the bruising was the result of the strike or the skin punctures by the teeth. He noted the sensation of comparable to catching a fast ball, but that is probably more of the sting sensation from the punctures, not the impact. A fastball-like impact would have had tremendous force well beyond that of the snake.

It is quite unlikely that a snake actually knocked a 230 lb man off of his feet. He may have gone down, but not because of the strike itself UNLESS the strike caused the guy's legs to cross while walking and he tripped. More likely, he went down for similar reasons that people go down after being shot with handguns in non-critical areas or hit in a ballistic vest. It is a reactionary fall, not a fall caused by the physics of the strike.

As for the idea that snakes don't bite and that their fangs stand straight out when striking, this is sort of misleading. When not biting, the upper fangs are actually pointing back into the mouth. When striking, the fangs hinge downward and end up at about a 90 degree angle to the upper jaw. The fangs will lead the strike, but that is because the head is pointed upwards during the strike.

As for the impact of the strike being what causes the venom to be injected, this is not normally the case. Rattlesnakes have the ability to control their venom output and do so from zero (dry bit) to full injection of all of the venom currently stored in the glands. Venon is expelled via contraction of jaw muscles around the venom glands. http://www.reptileallsorts.com/bites-venom.htm

I agree with everything Double Naught said,

I was asking if the fangs actually penetrated the snake boots because in my mind that's the only way a bruise could form, if the fangs penetrated skin, just like when you flex your muscle while you're getting a shot and it causes a big bruise.

brad cook

someone would pick him up by the tail only to be struck by the headless snake

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This is pure instictive reaction of any snake. It's no different than say "a chicken running around with his head cut off". I've seen snakes do it before too. It's not that they're still alive; they're dead as soon as that head comes off, but it's just nerves/reflex. Nothing about a snake really makes them hard to kill, once you find them.

I didn't say it was anything other than reaction, but Coltdriver said one load of snakeshot turns them to stone. I wouldn't call a headless body striking at you as long as two hours later "stone".

Chris

The example I cited probably,in hindsight,isn't relevant to THIS instance.The snake used in my example,while only 3-4 feet long,is considerably stronger than most any snake native to the US.The little python has the diameter of a pine/bull/gopher snake that is three times the length.Think 4 foot muscle the size of your wrist.The aforementioned bruising was most likely a combination of the (admittedly small)tooth penetration & the bites impact.

DoubleNaughtSpys' point about fang orientation reminded me that there is only one fixed fang venemous snake in the US.(Well,native anyways ).That would be the coral snake.Its fangs aren't long enough IIRC to penetrate a good leather boot.

I wonder if the 230lb guy was just suprised & maybe a bit shocked/dismayed/scared that he had been bitten & just fell/tripped?Sounds reasonable to me.

And in niether case did the fangs penetrate the boots so it was the force of the head hitting the boots that caused the bruise.

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Allegedly.

I agree about the truth stretching and I would say MOST DEFINITELY that's what's going on.

brad cook

SNAKE STRIKES -

BTDT! Almost, not quite, a "knockdown" but several things contributed to it. The strike was on a leg I had my weight on at the time. Any unexpected blow to your leg you instinctively try to move away from the blow.

You wind up with neither foot holding your weight and balance and it seems you've been knocked down.

I'd just stepped over a log, startled the snake, he hit the heel of the foot I had just taken my weight on, and it was a really sharp blow, just as I lifted the trailing foot. Lucky I sat on the log, not on the snake.

Yep, you cannot lift both feet at the same time!

My hunting buddy got a good laugh out of it.

GrayBear