Warning for CTS Owners

[NicG]

Hi guys,

I finally have some photos of an all-too-common phenomenon that's only been briefly spoken about until now (I believe) ... one Common Tree Snake semi-swallowing another one during feeding time.



As you can see, the smaller male had a fish in its mouth and the bigger female has his head inside her mouth.

I've seen this before a couple of times, but have never stopped to take photos before (for obvious reasons). But my guess is this happens a lot more often than we suspect, which makes me wonder just how dangerous it is. Maybe it's not. The only injury I've seen is a single small cut that disappeared following the next slough.

Anyway, just be aware that this does happen if you're going to keep multiple CTS together. The more agressive feeder will get into a frenzy when there is a live fish flapping around and try to bite anything that moves.

Cheers,
Nic

PS No snakes were hurt during the making of this post.

 

[Renenet]

Interesting. How long did it take for her to realise her mistake? What happened then?

 

[NicG]

That's the one thing I wasn't prepared to do. Although I do suspect that it's a not an uncommon occurrence and that the result is usually that the snake is released unharmed, I wasn't prepared to leave them like that. After my hasty - as you can tell by the photo quality - efforts to take a few pictures, I held onto the female who then released her 'prey' after ten seconds or so. She remained on high-food-alert so I then kept an eye on her while the male finished his meal.