Male snake choose to 'abandon food source than losing their penis'

Male snake choose to 'abandon food source than losing their penis'
By ANI ANI - Tue, Apr 19, 2011 4:00 PM IST

Melbourne, April 19 (ANI): A new research has suggested that fight or flee Snakes on a small Taiwanese island would rather abandon a food source than risk losing their twin penis.

In their study of the kukrisnake (Oligodon formosanus), the team of Australian and Taiwanese researchers claimed to have documented for the first time a case of snakes being territorial.

They observed that male snakes usually found the nests first; but then females would arrive and turf them out. However, if a second female arrived, after an initial combat they would often share the resource.

Why they behave like this comes down to a combination of dentition (they aren't called the 'kukri' snake for nothing), aggressive-defensive behaviour and the male's sex organs.

"The kukrisnakes, with these very large blade like teeth, make a huge slashing wound. It's a really nasty bite," the ABC Science quoted co-author of the study, Rick Shine of University of Sydney, as saying.
"[They] also have a defence display where they lift the back part of their body and they wave their tail around," added Shine.

Shine said this behaviour is quite common in snakes and is designed to confuse birds or other predatory animals.
"The male [kukrisankes] actually take it further and evert their hemipenis (twin penis) and wave them around," he said.

"This is a bad idea if there's an aggressive snake with very large teeth, that's going to slash away at the first thing you poke towards her. A good bite in that part of their anatomy, and their evolutionary fitness has probably come to an end," he added.

So when confronted, the male snakes abandon the eggs rather than risk cutting short their reproductivity.

"This is a spectacular example of how little we know about the private lives of animals and the way evolutionary processes can throw up exceptions to almost any rule that we come up with," said Shine.

The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)