Prey Playing Dead? Dice Snake Fakes Death Using Bloody, Gory Tactics To Avoid Getting Eaten by Predators, Study Reveals

Researchers have found that a snake species fakes death in order to avoid predation. It does so by making use of some gory and smelly tactics involving blood and feces.

Snake Fakes Death

Dice snakes can be quite convincing as they play dead by lying still. Some of them up their ante by leaking mouthfuls of blood and releasing smelly musk from their bottoms.

According to the new study, these dramatic feats enable the snakes to spend less time to fake their deaths compared to their relatives that do not use such body fluids.

The study notes that dice snakes, which are non-venomous snakes that are native to certain areas in Asia and Europe, are among other animals that fake their own death. The researchers were able to observe 263 of these snakes. They saw that among these snakes, 124 of them took an extra mile to smear feces on themselves. On the other hand, 28 of them had blood leaking from their mouths.

The researchers note in the study that when these snakes are captured, they will struggle vigorously and hiss as they expel and cover themselves in feces and musk. They eventually become immobile, having a protruding tongue and gaping mouth in a display of fake death. Auto hemorrhaging was observed as the creatures faked their deaths by dripping small blood pools or mouthfuls.

With the various behaviors exhibited immediately during and before death-faking, it is not inconceivable to think that some function synergistically with each other in order to make the feigning more dissuading for predators. This, thus, allows the prey animal to exploit the aversion that is learned.

The researchers discovered that snakes that utilized their feces and blood took two seconds faster to fake their own deaths compared to those that did not use such body excretions. This shows that such tactics are synergistic and boost one another.

They note that their findings support their hypothesis that these snakes smear themselves in feces and musk before they fake death and that they spend significantly less time. Findings stress the integrations of behaviors that are anti-predatory in nature across various predator-prey interaction phases. This stresses the need for further research to prioritize the study of sequential behavioral display.

Apparent Death: When Species Fake Their Own Death

The act of faking one's own death is known as apparent death. Several species in the animal kingdom make use of the tactic in order to avoid getting eaten by predators.

These predators typically favor live prey. They may have a lesser likelihood of eating an animal if they think that it is already dead. This is especially the case if they depend on the thrill of chasing the animal or on the movement for triggering their instincts for hunting.

The act of playing dead can also allow prey to escape when predators are distracted momentarily or opts to leave the fake corpse.