| 1 | World’s biggest snake caught? |
No matter how advanced society becomes, tales of giga-serpents will never stop flowing out of humid, tropical parts of the world. 2016’s edition occurred in Malaysia, when a female reticulated python slithered into the construction site of a flyover, on the scenic holiday island of Penang.
Headlines soon rang out declaring that the python measured 8 metres, and weighed a shocking 250kg. Images were released showing a very chunky snake indeed, requiring 5 government officials with blue uniforms and yellow hard hats to hold her.
Apparently, the government officials had taken 30 minutes to track the snake. If the estimates were true, the Malaysian super-snake would have exceeded the longest confirmed wild reticulated python (and snake) on record, a 6.95 metre individual which ate a sunbear in 1999.
Unfortunately, before Western scientists could arrive with measuring instruments, the snake died. She had laid one egg shortly after being captured. “Maybe she committed suicide. Maybe she felt threatened so she killed herself” speculated an officer of Malaysia’s Civil Defence Force.
However, footage had shown workers kicking the python, and even light-heartedly placing a noose around its neck. The snake certainly looked huge in images, but the chance to break the official wild record was now lost. Two other members of the department reported her length at 7.5 metres before her death. We will never know the answer to this mystery.
| 2 | Man empties 285 snakes |
In 2016, a video went viral of an Indian man emptying 285 snakes onto a remote rural road. The video reached 1.5 million views, and simply showed a man turning his sack upside down and allowing numerous writhing snakes to fall out. Some viewers wondered what on Earth was going on, others were just terrified.
The truth is that the video was taken in the Panchmadhi forest, near the large Indian city of Bhopal. Rather than a zealot determined to spread snakes everywhere, the man was a professional snake catcher called Salem Khan, known locally as Saleem the snake man.
Over his 30 year career, Khan claimed to have released 220,000 snakes into the jungles of Panchmadhi. On the average day, he captured 25-30 nuisance snakes in the Bhopal region, including in government ministers’ offices. However, instead of killing them, or even selling their skins to luxury fashion houses, Khan released them into the woods.
Viewer discretion is advised for any ophiophobe, as the video shows him releasing a writhing mass of snakes more typically found in a circus pit or Egyptian tomb. Khan stuck his hands into the pulsating pile, and attempted to spread the snakes out.
Ultimately, it took mere seconds for the snakes to disperse and slither into the undergrowth for freedom, each covering a different angle in a 360 degree radius. Salem chose to release them during the evening so that the ground was cooler. It’s hard to determine each exact species, but the majority were said to be ratsnakes, probably the harmless yet large oriental ratsnake (Ptyas mucosa).
| 3 | Human eyesight and snakes |
One of 2016’s most interesting snake studies involved human eyesight. It’s easy to pick up a bright red coral snake while walking through the woods, yet according to the experiment, human beings have an innate sensitivity to snakes, coded into our vision over millions of years.
Two Japanese scientists developed a system called Random Image Structure Evolution, which involved pictures of 4 animal types: snakes, birds, cats and fish. Each animal had 20 different images, on a scale of fully blurry to fully clear, in order to mimic the visibility of an animal in the undergrowth. Human volunteers were made to view the images and make adjustments until they were recognisable.
With the snake images, the participants usually required the 6th to 8th image to make a correct ID. With all other animals, they generally succeeded only at image 9, or even 10, requiring greater clarity. Most importantly, the images closely replicated conditions that snakes would be found in in the wild.
The scientists concluded that our eyes are uniquely sensitive to serpents, in order to function as an early alarm system. In fact, the mere existence of snakes may have spurned our eyesight to become sharper and more discerning over the years.
While our sense of smell pales next to a bear’s, which can sniff out a familiar dumpster from over 10 miles away, most great apes have strong eyesight. Some theorise that snakes triggered this entire enhancement, beginning over 10 million years ago, an idea which is widely dubbed “snake detection theory”.
| 4 | Avoid stressed out cottonmouths |
In 2016, a study proved that cottonmouths aren’t too dissimilar to humans. We might not be venomous and we might not hiss at people who annoy us (most of us anyway), but the study found that cottonmouths were far more willing to strike in anger when their stress hormones such as corticocosterone were high.
Scientists explored the beaver marshes and cypress swamps of Alabama, keeping their eyes peeled for cottonmouths. During each encounter, they followed the same system. Firstly, the scientists stood 1 metre away, to record the cottonmouths’ defensive responses. Then they seized them with steel tongs for 15 seconds to monitor any changes, before placing each cottonmouth in a tight plastic tube, and extracting blood samples from their tails.
Finally, they placed each cottonmouth inside a 5-gallon bucket for 30 minutes. The goal was to increase their stress levels due to tight confinement, before taking another blood sample.
Surprisingly, there was no correlation between aggression in the snakes deliberately stressed, with no increased strike rates. However, the cottonmouths with higher pre-existing stress hormones were significantly more aggressive. It was their baseline level of stress that turned out to be important.
If a cottonmouth is already relaxed, then provoking them may not be enough – this could explain why copperheads (their close relative) sometimes don’t react even after being stepped on. Alternatively, if a cottonmouth is generally bad-tempered, then it may assault you regardless of your actions.
The study also found that cottonmouths are less fearsome than widely believed. Only 11 of the 32 cottonmouths struck at researchers during their first encounter, despite them purposefully standing 1 metre away.
| 5 | Dog saves 7 year old girl |
The eastern diamondback causes the highest number of snakebite deaths in Florida, and ties with its western cousin for national snakebite deaths. Having a dog may be a defence against this grim fate, as the Deluca family learnt in 2016.
Molly and her German shepherd Haus were inseparable, after the family acquired the dog from a rescue shelter. When Molly met an eastern diamondback rattlesnake in the family’s backyard in Tampa one day, Haus instantly roused to action. He jumped between the girl and snake, and repeatedly moved backwards and forwards, as though trying to frighten the snake away.
Haus eventually succeeded, as the rattlesnake left the scene, and Molly escaped unharmed. But he soon began bleeding, and when his leg was shaved in hospital, three fang puncture marks were revealed.
Haus was treated with antivenom and painkillers, and survived, although he was believed to have suffered kidney damage. His muscles were damaged by the bite, but after a few days, he managed his first short walk. A fund-raising website was established to pay for the dog’s medical costs, and rapidly reached $50,000 in donations.
In any case, the family dog succeeded in its mission, as Molly escaped without harm, and later gave her opinion on her pooch protector: “He’s a cute dog. I like to smoosh his face“.
| 6 | Snake frazzles CCTV camera |
The month was October 2016. A tomato farm near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, had mysteriously lost all of its power. Most importantly, so had the CCTV system which was guarding the farm, and a group of repairmen were rapidly summoned.
The workers arrived on the scene and opened the CCTV control box. To their surprise, the culprit wasn’t a disconnected or worn out wire. Instead, a snake had slithered into the box, and apparently short-circuited the electrics.
When the repairmen arrived, the snake was seen peeping out of a small hole, like it was debating whether the countryside was safe yet. The snake seemed unharmed, with no sign of electric shock.
A technician filmed the snake in the control box, and uploaded it to social media. The video soon went viral, with comments speculating feverishly over the exact species.
While we can’t be sure, the snake’s beige underlay and rapidly alternating black checkers strongly resemble a Trans-Caucasian ratsnake (Zamenis hohenackeri), a common species in Azerbaijan, which is non-venomous and had no chance of killing the workers. Another possibility is the non-venomous eastern montpellier snake (Malpolon insignitus). The ultimate fate of the snake was never revealed.
| 7 | Indonesian singer bitten while live |
Our next story has a tragic ending, and a warning never to underestimate the darker forces of nature. Irma Bule was a popular singer in Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, who specialised in the genre of Dangdut. This originated in the 1980s, was once banned by the Indonesian government, and is still frowned upon by Islamic fundamentalists.
Bule’s gimmick in the crowded Dangdut genre was draping snakes around herself, which she had begun three years earlier. During a concert in west Java, Bule was handed a king cobra called Rianti, which she was assured was defanged. She sensually draped the king cobra around her neck as usual, but accidentally stepped on the king cobra’s tail mid-concert. In response, it sank its fangs into her thigh, which was captured on film.
Bule refused medical treatment, and kept singing and dancing as though nothing had happened. It briefly seemed like she had resisted its venom. But 45 minutes later, she was laughing and joking backstage, when she suddenly start vomiting, having seizures and collapsed.
Bule was transported to the emergency room, where she was quickly pronounced dead. Police began an investigation, and Bule’s mother was still waiting for answers from the organisers.
Meanwhile, Bule left behind a husband and three children below the age of 10. King cobra antivenom is very effective as of 2024, and if Bule had accepted a vial, she likely would have survived.
| 8 | New African adder discovered |
2016 saw yet another viper added to the 240+ species worldwide, this time found in a small pocket of Ethiopia’s mountainous core. This was part of the same Bitis genus as Africa’s ubiquitous puff adder, yet far rarer.
Technically, the snake had been discovered in the late 1960s, but nobody realised, as the specimen had been stored in a museum ever since. In 2013, researchers exploring Ethiopia’s Bale Mountain National Park spotted an unusually dark viper disappearing into the undergrowth, in the biodiversity-rich Harenna Forest. This preserved area is a hub of many rare frogs, and is the last remaining habitat of the endangered Ethiopian wolf.
This one fleeting glance spurred the researchers into action, and they re-examined the old museum snake, spotting clear differences in skull structure to other vipers. The patterns were dense black, with patterns of many thin white lines, similarly to the Arizona black rattlesnake. There were also subtle differences in scale counts. This enabled them to announce an all-new snake: the Bale Mountains adder (Bitis harenna).
The new snake’s venom wasn’t analysed in the initial study, but assumed to be equally as dangerous as their Bitis adder cousins. The new viper was already deemed to be under threat due to cattle grazing and deforestation.
Another rare Ethiopian member is Bitis parviocula, the Ethiopian mountain adder. However, this species looks completely different, with a green underlying colour and round black blotches.
| 9 | The genes that make snakes long |
Gorillas have genes that endow them with super strength, humans have genes that give us intelligence, and somewhere in snakes are genes which massively extend their length.
Scientists already knew about a gene in mice called Gdf11, which controlled length. When this gene was overactive, in a select few mutants, it produced a creature worthy of Dr Moreau’s island: a bizarrely elongated mouse. These mice also had unusual clusters of cells on their tails.
In nature, creatures can become elongated either by extending individual vertebrae, like in a giraffe’s neck, or by increasing the quantity of vertebrae, like with a swan’s. The scientists next identified a similar gene called Oct4, present in many vertebrates, including mice and snakes. The scientists tested whether Oct4 was overexpressed during the embryonic development of snakes, and as expected, it was. Oct4 remained active for longer periods in snakes, due to its position next to a cluster of DNA that kept the genetic switch on.
The scientists then manipulated the Oct4 gene in mouse embryos, and found that they too become longer. Specifically, Oct4 worked by increasing the quantity of vertebrae on the lower body, rather than extending each one’s length.
The study wasn’t just an intellectual curiosity, but promising for medicine, as it was believed to offer clues in the future for regenerating spinal patients.
| 10 | Bullet train screeches to a halt |
Snakes on a train is a surprisingly common occurrence worldwide, whether crossing the tracks or nestled snugly in an overnight carriage. In 2011, a Japanese bullet train was brought to a screeching halt near Kyoto after passengers noticed a Honduran milk snake slithering around. Despite its red-black bands, which closely resemble coral snakes, this species is completely harmless, but nobody knew it at the time.
Meanwhile, 2016 saw a separate incident when a 30cm (1 inch) snake was spotted poking through a gap between the seats. The only animals allowed on bullet trains are small fish and birds, yet here the snake was. Somehow, it had gone unnoticed for nearly an hour.
The snake wasn’t venomous, as it bore no resemblance to Japan’s mamushi or habu. Its brown appearance and occasional black patterns led people to believe it was a juvenile ratsnake.
The train was forced to stop between Tokyo and Hiroshima, and police soon captured the serpent stowaway. Despite announcements on loudspeakers informing passengers of an escaped pet, no owner came forward. The reputation of the hyper-punctual bullet train was saved, as somehow, it still arrived in Hiroshima on time.