First Call of the Season (Causus rhombeatus)

[Mehelya]

Hey all.

Well on Sunday, the 18th, I got a call for a snake in a yard. By the time I got there, it had disappeared, and I searched for about an hour to no avail. Gave the usual thing about keeping an eye out, etc. and on Tuesday, the 20th, I got a call from the same people. Rushed out, and got there, to find everyone standing in their garage. They proceeded to show me what they were looking at. Up in the rafters, some 3m off the ground, there was a Night Adder, parking off a few centimetres from the corrugated iron, catching a few moments of warmth...

Took it home, and was going to release on Wednesday, but the weather turned nasty here, and decided to leave it for the weekend. I was busy feeding the pythons, and had an extra mouse left over, so on an off chance, I threw the mouse into the nightie's hold box, just to see if it would. Went off to work, and when I came back, I smelt a rather rank smell emanating from the one room... Checking all the cages, I finally went to the boarding nightie, and found that it had regurged half of a toad that was pretty well digested, and smelling worse than anything I've ever smelt before... BUT, the mouse was gone! There is no way the mouse could have gotten away, because : 1. it was an f/t; and 2. even if it had managed to revive, by some divine rodent deity intervention, the huge gaping surgical incision through the length of the body would've made it hard anyway...

Now, I know this sounds weird, but is it possible for a snake to decide that another food item is more "tasty", "delicious", or "better for it", and regurge a current meal for a "better" one? Just a thought... If this Night Adder has had rodent before, and prefers it to toad, would this be a valid reasoning, or just whimsical wishing?

Anyway, here's a photo of the little chap, after chowing the mouse...

[Bushviper]

An arboreal mouse eating night adder. Not an everyday find.

[Chameleon Company]

I have seen night adders take rodents before, well actually a number of species that generally take amphibians such as Herald's, water snakes etc....

A number of Rinkhals I caught in the past have regurgitated adult toad legs! This poses the question of species being able to detach limbs from bigger prey items.

Nice call out for the fresh season.

Just be careful when putting a mouse in with a snake and leaving it there, mice can be quite aggressive and injure the snake.

[kfc223]

It was a frozen/thawed mouse.

[Mehelya]

BV, I was not expecting it. The first sighting was in the garden in the front of the house. In all fairness, there is a fairly thick vine growing on the back of the garage, but still. Good 3m up... And the mouse was just on a spur-of-the-moment idea. Remembered another members post about juvi nighties eating pinks.

Chameleon Company, why regurge a meal to swallow another? The mouse didn't even make a dent in the stomach... The toad wasn't that big either. You could just see it had eaten something, and it was basically legs, and back third of the body. So, space wasn't an issue. The rinkhals I found in May, posted on the forum, took f/t pinks off forceps from the go. I think a lot of reptiles are more "opportunistic feeders" than we realize.

Yes, if was an f/t I had used to scent some rats for some pythons. It was most definitely dead...

[Chameleon Company]

Sorry Mehelya the f/t confused me I thought you were referring to the size of the mouse.

Indeed some species are very opportunistic feeders and the Herald Snake is a very good example of this in suburban gardens.