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Name: Kendall
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
what do hognose snakes defend themselves with? Are they poisonous?


Replies:
Hognose snakes are not poisonous - they will puff up their necks in a threatening display when approached, but if that doesn't work they will play dead.

J. Elliott

Hognose snakes aren't poisonous. Their defense is to bluff. If one is threatened, it first will act as if it will strike, lifting up its head and lunging at whatever comes too close. But it doesn't have poison, or fangs: it's just trying to make you think it does. If that doesn't work, the snake will pretend to be dead. And they have very definite ideas of what it means to be dead! The snake will roll onto its back, and will not move - unless you roll it back over onto its stomach. Then it will flip itself back onto its back again, as if to say, "No! Can't you see that I'm dead?"

I like hognose snakes.

Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.


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