The Eastern Milk Snake (OT)

I googled the species, of course, and read about how it earned the name because of legends that the snakes would milk the cows, reducing production for the farmers. Biologists dismiss these tales as trash.

Then I told this to my mother and got a very different account.

It was seventy-two years ago that she and Wilma, her younger sister, went to the back forty to get the cattle for milking. To their horror a milk snake had attached itself to a cow's teat and wrapped itself around her leg. They frantically drove the cattle to the barn, reported the situation to their father, and fled to the house. The cow's teat never milked again.

She wouldn't budge from this account, so I started to speculate as to how it might have occurred. From what I saw last week of my garden friend, the milk snake is a stupid creature, slow to react but nasty if something comes within its strike range. What's the lowest point on a cow? Narrowly missed by a front hoof, the snake would have just enough time to react to the passing teat.... only to get his teeth stuck in the thing. The paper I read on the snakes cites the design of the teeth making it very difficult for a milk snake to let go of anything. Chances are the snake wasn't really thirsty, but Mom vividly recalls its ride wrapped around the hind leg of that cow, mouth firmly clamped over the end of one teat.

Does anyone have any other accounts for my skeptical tree-hugging friends?

Rod

The point, of course, is that the snake wasn't interested in the milk. It just hit whatever came within its limited zone of awareness, and the teat happened to be the lowest part of the moving cow at the time it got its strike together. From there the geometry of the snake's teeth and mouth takes over. Once attached, there's no way off. The constrictor comes out in its instinct to wrap itself around whatever threatens it.

As far as the formation of the hoop, I might have another theory. The snake, after I disturbed it with my camera and it struck dimly at me, (no more than a 3 or 4" lurch) turned its head and slowly made its way back on a reciprocal course all the way to its tail. So I had this snake doubled in my lens. Good pictures, btw, if anybody needs some. I suppose as a burrow-raider the snake is accustomed to going out the same way it came in, but the same behaviour on an open driveway seemed peculiar in the extreme. No, it did not bite its tail and form a hoop, but it looked as though it could have done the tail-biting part as its departure scheme involved doubling up and passing the wagging tail with its head before it very slowly made its way back to cover.

I can see how milk snakes often freak people out. They're pretty strange.

Rod

btw: The attached photo is reduced to 1/2 meg to fit the Board, but the originals are 9 meg.

• Snake Hoop