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A video shows how a snake fakes its own death in dramatic fashion by flailing around before lying limp on its back.
The U.S. snake in question is the eastern hognose, which is known for the over-the-top display. The video was posted on Facebook in 2021 by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which described the display as a "death performance." It can be watched above.
On October 14, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation said on Facebook that the snakes are "especially active" this month and that people should "keep an eye out for these drama noodles of the prairie."
Eastern hognose snakes, sometimes called puff adders, are thick-bodied reptiles that are about 46 inches long and can be distinguished by their upturned snout, according to the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. They can be found in the eastern half of the U.S.
During the day, the snake will prey on creatures such as frogs, salamanders and, in particular, toads. The snakes are equipped with rear fangs in the back of their mouths that are used to puncture inflated toads so they can be more easily swallowed.
The snake is not venomous, is not dangerous to humans and does not usually bite, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History, but it does have a mild venom used for subduing its prey.
Instead, the snake uses an eye-catching self-defense method. When threatened, the reptile will pretend to die, flipping onto its back and convulsing for a short time and even sometimes defecating. Afterward, it will remain motionless, with its mouth open and its tongue hanging out, until the coast is clear.
The behavior is known as thanatosis, and it can be useful in deterring prey.
"It's based on the idea that most animals don't eat carrion. So if you're dead, that potential predator might leave you alone," Mark O'Shea, a professor of herpetology at the University of Wolverhampton in the U.K., told Newsweek.
He continued: "And so they will roll onto their backs, and they'll have their cloaca gaping—that's the communal genital and excretory opening. They may secrete cloacal secretions, which make them smell a bit bad. They'll lie there with their mouth open and their tongue hanging out.
"You know, if you ask drama students to play dead, invariably they lie on their back and their tongue hangs out their mouth—it seems to be associated with being dead! Well, these snakes do that," O'Shea said.
He said that the behavior is not exclusive to the eastern hognose and that multiple species of snakes may resort to the dramatic act if threatened, including grass snakes. But eastern hognoses are perhaps the most famous snakes that do it.
"The hog snake is the drama queen of death feigners, outdoing even Peter Sellers in The Party," Arthur Georges, a herpetologist and distinguished professor at the Center for Conservation and Ecology Genetics at the University of Canberra in Australia, told Newsweek.
"Without any other defenses in its arsenal, it turns to drama. One wonders how its prolonged and apparently agonizing death could possibly deter a predator interested in a quick meal," Georges said.
"In evolution of such behavior, the benefit draws from the eye of the beholder, so what might seem odd to us has evolved through generations of successful and incremental deterrents of hog-snake predators. What we see is the polished endgame, and the hog snake display is polished indeed," he said.
