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Interactions between mustelids and snakes
Topic Started: Mar 18 2017, 05:29 AM (463 Views)
Ceratodromeus
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Aspiring herpetologist
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Post any information pertaining to the natural interactions of these animals here.

From the locked Western Ratsnake v stoat thread

I had read somewhere before that sympatric snakes ate weasels, but wasn't sure on the species.No specifics on age and gender of the predated mammals in question, but this is probably worth noting -- small mention of black rat snakes predating stoats:
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from
Guide to the mammals of Pennsylvania (By Joseph Merritt)

After looking for stoats indentified in the scat contents of western black rat snakes i did come across something particularly fascinating noted in a study on Kansas black rat snakes, serious but externally healed wounds attributed to rodent bites. Something worth noting is that no weasel predation on black rat snakes was noted in the Kansas rat snakes, but the hawks are death on them apparently, especially the juvenile animals.
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On the introduced populations of mongoose relations with small/ mid sized constricting snakes of South America
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from the book
Mongooses; their natural history and behavior( by Howard everest Hinton and A.M. Sarah Dunn)

The above book i've linked goes into far more detail on how mongoose deal with cobras far better than i can, but it also touches on the fact that Vipers tend to do far better against mongoose than their distant relatives, due to the way they strike, orientation of their fangs, and possibily even the gape of the animals, the book i've mentioned above asserts that vipers "won more often than not" in staged interactions, so take that as you will. In this regard Klauber writes that mongoose avoid viperinae snakes, so that is also probably worth noting. Back to the book, you can take the following from it:


  • Invasive mongoose don't appear to have any significant degree on the cook island tree boa or boa constrictor, and fall prey to them with some degree of frequency
  • At the time the book in question was authored four species of venomous snakes are reported to not be affected by introduced mongoose in any way, those being two vipers and two coral snakes (Bothrops atrox has become uncommon in one area, but with no definitive tie to the introduction of the mongoose).
  • At the time this book was authored, the authors were "unable to find any natural record of a mongoose attacking a large viper".
  • Snakes are largely unimportant in the diet of mongoose
  • Pit vipers were said to do far better than elapids with these mammals due to various morphological traits described earlier



[Brief commentary on other posted interactions from this thread]
Small mustelid predation on colubrids such as grass snakes and kin, which you will commonly see on youtube, are of course more likely to be over taken by mongoose because they have no viable way of defending themselves successfully, even when they're a very good deal longer, interactions are exceedingly one sided really. Doesn't make them any less impressive, but that probably needs to be pointed out. In turn mustelids of North America have been documented in the diets of numerous species of snakes, namely the rattlesnakes but also the smaller bodied constrictors such as the black rat snake predation on stoats i posted earlier in this thread.

Rock python/ Honey badger interactions are very interesting, but probably have bloated length figures for the former -- i've seen the same instance had multiple length figures attributed to a python, so with most of these you've got to take the lengths with a huge pinch of salt. Again doesn't mean it isn't impressive, just worth pointing out. We of course can note the african rock python killing the honey badger account i've posted as well.
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SquamataOrthoptera
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According to the photograper, the Mink killed the Snake after a lengthy struggle.
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Edited by SquamataOrthoptera, Mar 18 2017, 05:45 AM.
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