Many animals depend on stealth to catch prey, but a small tentacled water snake resorts to downright trickery. That’s what a Vanderbilt University scientist found when he analyzed the way the snake captures fish, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The snake, which is native to Southeast Asia, takes advantage of a well-known reflex that fish possess. The mechanism occurs when a fish’s ear senses changes in water pressure due to movement nearby, which is all it takes to initiate the fish’s escape response, called the C-start — one of the most well studied neural circuits in vertebrates. Two large nerve cells, known as Mauthner cells, run along either side of the fish’s body and detect water disturbances. The cell closest to the signal will fire action potentials that stimulate trunk muscles on the opposite side of the body while simultaneously inhibiting the muscles on the near side. As a result, the fish turns away from the disturbance and flees. This whole process takes less than a tenth of a second [The Scientist]. The reflex causes the fish’s body to form a “C” as it turns away from the source of the underwater vibration—but in this case, that leads the fish right into the snake’s jaws.
Researcher Kenneth Catania was watching water snakes in an aquarium when he noticed that fish seemed to swim right into the snake’s mouth. It wasn’t until he took a high-speed video of the snake as it fed, however, that he got to the root of the snake’s technique. The snakes’ motions take only a few hundredths of a second — too fast for the human eye to follow. However, its prey reacts even faster, in a few thousandths of a second [LiveScience].
The hungry tentacled snake first curves its body into the shape of a J. As it prepares to strike, the snake twitches to produce the sound waves that initiate its prey’s C-start reflex. That twitch is produced not by the snake’s head but by its body, Catania discovered when he lowered an underwater microphone into an aquarium holding the snake and fish. Fish ears sense which way the predator’s sound waves are coming from, thus allowing the fish to prepare for a speedy departure in the opposite direction [ABC News]. In this case, the sound waves cause the fish to turn away from the snake’s body, and therefore to flee right into the snake’s mouth.
Related Content:
80beats: A Mating Strategy Involving Giant Sperm Has Stood the Test of Time
80beats: Built-In Mirrors Help Spookfish See in the Dark Ocean Depths
80beats: Fish Living in a 5-Mile Deep Trench Caught On Film
Image: Wikimedia Commons / Ryan Somma
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:10 am
So… it’s curling up and farting at them, causing them to dart into it’s mouth?
…
BRILLIANT!
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Looking at the “missed” strike section of the video, sometimes it pays to be a little slower than everybody else.
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:26 am
Wow thats a fast snake. It move like freekin lightning.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
cool!
July 4th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
its like when your friend comes up behind you and taps you on one shoulder, but really is going to eat you.
May 12th, 2011 at 10:46 am
One thing I want to reply to is that weightloss program fast may be accomplished by the right diet and exercise. People’s size not merely affects the look, but also the quality of life. Self-esteem, depressive disorder, health risks, as well as physical skills are impacted in weight gain. It is possible to just make everything right and still gain. If this happens, a medical problem may be the root cause. While too much food instead of enough exercise are usually responsible, common medical ailments and traditionally used prescriptions might greatly add to size. Many thanks for your post here gywl512.
May 12th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
Thanks for your posting. My partner and i have usually noticed that many people are needing to lose weight because they wish to show up slim in addition to looking attractive. Nevertheless, they do not generally realize that there are more benefits for you to losing weight additionally. Doctors insist that over weight people come across a variety of health conditions that can be perfectely attributed to their particular excess weight. The great thing is that people that are overweight as well as suffering from different diseases can reduce the severity of their particular illnesses by means of losing weight. You are able to see a steady but marked improvement with health whenever even a minor amount of fat reduction is obtained gywl512.