SCORPION-EATING SNAKE

Monday afternoon a commotion erupted among the chickens and Ana Maria got there just in time to keep a little snake from being hurt too much. The snake was about fifteen inches long with an unusually blunt head, a short, thick tail, and a very pretty color, a kind of rosy-cream. It was the Scorpion-eating Snake, STENORRHINA FREMINVILLEI.

The snake behaved as if it had been handled as a pet every day of its life. I don't think I've ever seen such a peaceful, pleasant snake of this size.

We could identify the snake because Ana Maria had a book about the snakes of Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, and this species, perhaps because it's so pretty and interesting, happened to be described and illustrated.

The snake mainly eats insects, spiders and scorpions. To deal with the dangerous stingers of the latter, the snake has evolved a simple but effective behavior: The moment it captures a scorpion it contracts its body in such as way that its scales overlap, effectively increasing its armament. At the same time, the snake coils its body around the victim so the scorpion can't position its stinger for a jab.

By the time we'd found some scorpions to feed it, it'd escaped, and I can't even find a picture of it on the Internet so I can show you what it looked like. That snake came and went like a chimera leaving no trace, and I suppose that that's befitting such a pretty one.