Manjunath Nayak
The continuing lockdown has seen many unusual things happening across the world – a range of wildlife species appearing on city roads and towns. But in two villages of India, people witnessed snakes swallowing and suffocating one another.
Naturalists witnessed and recorded these events on camera of a snake eating another snake in a house. This was followed by another snake suffocating its fellow species in a nearby village. This occurred on the same day in two villages of Ankola taluk in Uttar Kannada, Karnataka, India.
On a fine morning recently, Sukru Manu Gouda of Honnebail village noticed two Spectacled Cobras fighting near his house and immediately informed snake rescuers. Mahesh Naik [from Awrsa] along with his son Gagan rushed to the place, however, they were stunned to see the fighting cobras (Naja naja) were huge. After a fight that lasted one hour – the victorious cobra got down to eat its defeated opponent completely. Later, Mahesh rescued this satiated Cobra and released it in the wild.
The same day in Belambara village – Digambar Karvi, a fisherman noticed a huge cobra in the verandah of his house. Unfortunately, the Cobra was in a do or die situation as its neck was tightly held by a Whitekar’s boa. Although the boa is small in size compared to a Cobra – they are usually strong and coil around their enemy tightly and kill the bigger Cobra by suffocating them for their own survival. Both Mahesh Naik and Gagan who reached this village were successful in documenting the rare event.
On April 27, in the village of Gulagulishankar-hosalli in Hosanagar taluk of Shivamogga district – Venkatesh, a farmer noticed that a cobra in a rice store was trying to swallow something inedible. Nagaraj Bellur, herpetologist was called in to rescue the snake. By the time, Bellur and his team could come, the cobra had swallowed a plastic carry bag completely. However, the veteran herpetologist and two others made the cobra to regurgitate the plastic bag.
Now why did this snake swallow non-food articles? Snakes can detect the urine smell of rats and other rodents on plastic bags, gunny bag pieces and clothes. And this leads to snakes accidentally swallowing plastic or other items which cannot be digested hence, it is regurgitated by the snake.
Such a phenomenon in which a Snake species eats another snake species has been observed among some common feeding ecology. This is nothing but cannibalism in which a snake species eats snake of the same species which is rare in nature. It happens accidentally. Cannibalism is not intentional rather opportunistic when the snake is hungry and so it takes the opportunity to feed upon another snake for its survival.
[The author is a biodiversity researcher and academician based in Gadag district of Karnataka, India]
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