Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Eastern Hognose Snake
by: Tom Berg
The eastern hognose snake is one of our most interesting snakes. They inhabit most of the eastern half of the United States, and also southern portions of Canada. These medium-sized snakes can be a variety of colors: orange, red, green, yellow, brown or black. They may have a pattern of checkers or blotches or have no pattern at all. The best way to identify them is by their sharply upturned snout, which is used for digging through sand when pursuing prey.
Eastern hognose snakes are toad-hunting specialists. They also eat frogs and other amphibians, but given their choice of food, it would be a toad. Toads have the unusual ability to inflate their bodies with air when attacked, which they hope will make them too large for a snake to swallow. Unfortunately for them, hognose snakes have specially-adapted teeth at the back of their mouth which can pierce and deflate the toad, allowing the snake to swallow them easier. What an amazing adaptation!
When threatened, hognose snakes often flatten the skin on their head and neck and raise their head, similar to a cobra or other viper. They also inflate their body with air and expel the air with a loud hiss, followed by a quick strike. Even though they are not aggressive, they will put on an aggressive show to try and scare away the intruder. If this does not work, they play dead by rolling onto their back with their mouth wide open and their tongue hanging out. They sometimes even regurgitate food and emit a foul musk odor in an attempt to discourage predators.
Because of their coloration and unusual behaviors, eastern hognose snakes are known by many names, including: spreading viper, hissing snake, blowing viper, puff adder, black adder, checkered adder, hog-nosed adder, sand adder, sand viper and many others.
The main thing to remember is that eastern hognose snakes, like most other snakes, are harmless to humans. In fact, these snakes rarely bite humans, even in self defense.
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