Strange,
animals,
podcast podcasts.
Welcome
to strain animals podcast.
I'm your host, Kate Shaw.
After today, the next 4 weeks will be
all about invert
or animals without a backbone
because it's almost invert, August.
But this week, let's learn about some animals
that are basically nothing but backbone bones.
Snakes.
Thanks to Ai, blue the chicken wing and
Richard from North Carolina for their suggestions.
Also, if you like enamel pins even slightly
as much as I do I'm starting a
kickstarter in a few weeks to make some
more. These will be bigger than the ones
I made a few years ago and we'll
include an eye.
Where else are you gonna get an eye
and I'm will pin. There's a link in
the show notes if you want to sign
up for an email reminder when the campaign
goes alive in mid August.
Anyway, let's start with Snake island.
Suggested by Ai.
Snake island is off the coast of Brazil
in South America. And it's quite small, only
about 106
acres total or 43 hectares
in hill and a little over half of
it is covered with a temperate rainforest.
While the rest is grass or just bare
rocks.
No 1 lives there these days, and it's
a protected area the only scientists are allowed
to visit. With the exception of members of
the Brazilian navy who occasionally stop by to
maintain the lighthouse that keeps ships from smashing
into the Rocky coast.
Lots of birds live on the island or
visit there, but other than that, it's mostly
just snakes.
Specifically,
The critically endangered golden Lance ted pit viper
lives on Snake island and nowhere else in
the world.
It can grow nearly 4 feet long, or
118
centimeters,
and is pale gold or golden brown in
color with darker sp.
It's also incredibly venom, but no 1 has
ever been bitten by 1 as far as
we know. If somehow you were bitten by
1 It probably wouldn't be a pleasant
situation, but you also probably wouldn't die. That's
mainly because the Golden Lance heads venom is
a adapt did to kill birds and reptile,
not mammals. And that's because there are no
mammals living on Snake island.
The golden lance head spends most of its
time in trees or bushes hunting for birds.
It mainly eats 2
species of small bird that live on the
island. Although it will also eat other birds,
lizards, and invert like insects.
Some reports say it will even eat smaller
golden lance heads. There's another snake that lives
on the island
salvage snail eater, and the Golden Lance ted
might occasionally stack on 1 of those.
The snail eater is also present on Mainland
Brazil and isn't venom.
You can probably guess that it mainly eats
snails.
It's small and thin lives in trees and
is brownish yellow with darker stripes and sp.
The issue with snake island and its snakes
is that there isn't that much land available
for the snakes to live on, and the
forest has been damaged by human activity.
Big chunks of forest were cleared by fire
when people decided to try growing bananas on
the island, which didn't work very well. No
1 lives there now, but poach do occasionally
visit the island to catch snakes for the
illegal wildlife trade. The golden Lance head is
starting to show signs of in breeding and
disease as a result.
As if that wasn't bad enough, because the
island is so close to the coast of
Brazil and Mainland Brazil has its own problems
with
deforestation, Fewer birds are migrating through the area
every year. That means fewer birds stop at
snake island and the snakes have less to
eat.
Some reports claim that the island is so
over overrun by snakes that you'd encounter 1
with every step if you visited, but that's
not actually true.
The snakes don't live everywhere, and they spend
almost all their time in trees.
Recent studies estimate that around 2000 to 4000
snakes live on the island, which sounds like
a lot until you remember that these are
the only golden lance heads in the whole
world.
Fortunately,
rumors that anyone who sets foot on the
island is at risk of being bitten and
dying horribly from the Golden Lance heads venom.
Keep a lot of people away. A captive
breeding program in Sao paulo, Brazil is also
working to help the snakes.
The golden lance head is a type of
pit viper, closely related to other pit viper
found in Brazil.
Its ancestors were trapped on the island when
ocean levels rose at the end of the
p scene around 11000
years ago. And it's been evolving separately ever
since.
Species in the genus both reps are also
called fe snakes. And that brings us to
our next suggestion from blue the chicken wing.
What
name?
Blew the chicken wing left us a nice
review a while back. And made 2 suggestions,
1 of which is the fair alliance. Fair
alliance is a french term meaning spear
or Lance had as in golden lance head.
The golden lance head belongs to the genus
both reps, pit viper that are found throughout
much of central and America, as well as
some Caribbean islands.
We're only going to talk about 1 other
species of fair alliance this week, though. Both
reps Lance,
also called the Martini glance head. It too
lives on an island. In this case, the
Caribbean island of Martini
The martin glance head can grow up to
5 feet long or 1 and a half
meters with un
reports of individuals twice that length.
It's light brown with darker speck and a
pale belly. It lives in forest areas and
spends most of its time hidden. Waiting for
an animal to happen by, then it strikes.
It eats pretty much anything it can catch,
including frogs and rats. Bats and birds, rabbits,
lizards, other snakes, and even large insect.
Its venom isn't as potent as the golden
Lance heads but it's still dangerous to humans
and unlike the golden Lance,
it can and does occasionally bite people.
The Martini glance had is in danger due
to habitat loss and poaching.
People are naturally afraid of the snake and
we'll kill it when they can. When all
at wants is to be left alone to
eat animals like rats and other snakes that
people don't want around either.
Hospitals in Martin Inc, keep anti and in
stock to treat the 20 or 30 people
who are bitten by a fair alliance every
year.
Most people are fine after receiving treatment, but
those who can't get to the hospital in
time more who try to treat the bite
at home. Sometimes die.
The martini lance head gives birth to live
young as is the case for other freighter
land snakes.
The eggs remain inside the mother until the
baby's hatch, at which point the mother delivers
them and they slit their away to live
on their own.
Speaking of snakes having babies, let's finish with
a suggestion by Richard from North Carolina
who sent me an article that was only
published Literally 2 days ago as this episode
goes live.
This is not about a snake that lives
on an island, but it's so interesting I
wanted to include it. It's about the Louisiana
pine snake, which is not venom,
but which is 1 of the rarest snakes
in North America.
The pine snake is a type of constrict
and like other constrict it can grow, quite
large. The largest
individual ever reliably measured was over 5 and
a half feet long or 1.8
meters,
It's 10 or yellowish in color with a
darker brown pattern.
It lives in open pine forests and grass
lands in parts of Western
Louisiana,
andes east Texas, but even when it wasn't
so rare, hardly anyone ever saw 1 because
it spends most of its time underground
It's specialized to eat a little rodent called
Baird pocket Gop. And when it's not actually
hunting the gop, it hangs out in the
Gop old burrows.
To stay cool and safe. In winter, it
hi in a gop burrow, and there's nothing
that Gop can do about that to Baird
pocket go for looks a little bit like
a small guinea pig because of its large
head, tiny ears and eyes, chunky body, and
short legs.
It has long claws that help it dig
rapidly in the sandy ground it prefers.
While the Louisiana pines think mostly eats the
gop It will also be other small animals
like frogs, rabbits, and bird eggs when it
finds them. The snake is threatened by habitat
loss.
Especially the problem of roads being built through
its habitat.
A lot of snakes are killed by cars
while trying to cross the road,
Since the snake usually only lays a few
eggs a year, rarely more than 5, it's
hard for populations to grow.
Fortunately,
the Memphis zoo in Tennessee
is headquarters for a careful captive breeding program
of the pine snake. And a few days
ago, a baby snake hatched and is doing
great. Hopefully, more will hatch soon.
The babies will be cared for until they're
big enough to be safe for most predators,
and then they'll be released into the wild.
So far, around 300 captive born snakes have
been released into the wild,
increasing the Louisiana pine snakes, chance for long
term survival.
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That's blueberry without any ease.
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comments, or suggestions for future episodes,
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monthly bonus episodes. Thanks for listening.
But you also probably wouldn't die. I mean,
maybe you would die. Let's not find out.