Stick it out for survival

Stick it out for survival
Originally uploaded by Pandiyan.

This would be pretty rude and crude for humans but for this snake it is a matter of survival. These darting tongue feeds tiny chemical particles in the air to what is called a Jacobson's organ located in the roof of its mouth which helps interpret that information.

The pythons just like some other snakes have the ability to sense heat as well. You can see the heat sensing pits on its face. They are clearer in the larger size.

This photo was a heck of a challenge though it looks pretty simple. The snake was animated than a teenager lost to rap music. Wont stay still for a second. And his tongue movement were pretty erratic and it took some time for me to sense the rhythm and predict it. Then I had to train the camera which has quite a shutter lag. The battery was low adding to the suspense. And I had a real teenager, Arun, to contend with. He was very irritable as I was taking a lot of time. He kept making annoying comments.

In all this tension, I could not get the snake positioned properly against the one on Arun's T-Shirt totally ruining the basic idea I had! I should have cropped that print out.

Incidentally, the T-Shirt was a payment for Arun for helping out with the shooting of a BBC documentary on turtles. I thought acting was pretty remunerative but then a T-Shirt is better than nothing for non-speaking part!. If you watch BBC nature programmes, you may catch Arun. But you will only see his fingers, hands and chest holding turtles and tortoises but not his face!

Arun's advice against rock

Arun's advice against rock
Originally uploaded by Pandiyan.

Here is an instance, for a change, Arun cautioned me against going closer to his face! I wanted to get down to get to see if I could catch the heat sensing pits of this python but was told it can charge if irritated. So I had to contend with a top down shot.

Pythons are not venomous but can deliver a painful bite. Along with reticulates and boas these are very popular in giant pet trade. And their skin too fetches a good price. So they are becoming rarer in the wild and their current status is near threatened.

These pythons are smaller than Reticulated Pythons and also their cousins African Rock pythons. They grow upto 18 feet. Unlike us they don't spend much time finding and eating food. If they eat a good meal, say, their own weight they can go on for a full year before the next meal! Imagine if we had it like that.

I have talked to experts and searched all over the net. There has been no authentic record of pythons killing humans. Biggest meal they have taken is a small mammal and nothing more. But still the myth of pythons crushing humans and cows and such persists.

And they don't actually crush their prey. They constrict them to suffocate. Then they swallow the prey whole. Unlike many other snakes they move in a straight line. Snake scholars call it rectilinear progression.