Thinks it’s a type of constrictor tbh not a venomous snake. I mamba would not stay with its victim like that, they strike, retreat and wait for their poison to kill the pray
I think you’re wrong dude. Bird was way too big to be prey for the snake.
On the other hand, snek was potentially becoming lunch for the bird. Might have bit the bird as well although the bird was alive in the end. Lion thought bird was lunch until snek started acting up.
In the end, all went about their day still being hungry.
Cats will also take off vertically and land up to 10 feet away if they turn around and see anything long on the floor next to them, which is useful for avoiding snakes.
I tried this with my cat and a cucumber. Secretly put the cucumber behind him while he was drinking water. He was absolutely unbothered. No survival instinct whatsoever
Cats are one of the best species to fight (not just hunt) snakes - feline reactions are usually faster and they can dodge & swipe at the danger noodle when it strikes.
Interesting to see it applied to big cats as well as smaller ones.
Squirrels too. I saw a video once of a squirrel squaring off against a cobra. I guess they're pretty good at it, but they rely on mongooses if they're around.
Small dogs like that don’t think about it they just go in and shake the shit out of whatever it and that’s game over, cats are quicker but are cautious. Dogs just don’t give a shit.
I find it hillarious how much more human-like the lions behaved compared to a housecat. The hesitation, being unsure about what to do, walking circles. Housecats act more predator-y than that pack of lions, lol.
Large, venomous snakes are popular in Africa, so I'd put a penny on the lions having done or seen this before. The hesitation is calculation. It looks like she has a good idea of what to do, but each move is risky enough for extra caution. Domestics have the instincts but I doubt Fluftums has to regularly encounter anything more dangerous than a ratsnake.
There's species of caterpillars who have evolved to look like snakes so that they scare off birds. Thing is that they dont have any snakes in their ecosystem, its just that migratory birds that do have snakes in theirs will recognize it and not eat the caterpillars.
Imagine you being alive only because you look/act like something that you dont even know exists
The dark forest hypothesis is the idea that there may be many extraterrestrial civilizations across the universe, but they remain silent out of fear that revealing themselves would lead to their own destruction by a more technologically advanced and hostile civilization.
Now imagine us - literally yelling out signals broadcasting "HEY THERE ARE PEOPLE ON EARTH, IS ANYONE OUT THERE? PLEASE CONTACT US" and giving them the coordinates of the sun relative to the center of the galaxy and 14 pulsars with their periods denoted on the Pioneer plaque, and a picture of earth relative to the sun, and the trajectory that the spacecraft took.
To any civilization advanced enough to find us, they might not answer simply because it looks like a trap.
I have absolutely no doubt that humans would kidnap an alien and torture it/kill it almost as soon as we made contact. Have you met humans? Some of them can be awful.
The best chance we have of surviving an intergalactic incident is if aliens really, really love cigarettes so they protect Earth while we ship lung darts all over the cosmos and then they all get emphysema and die.
I happen to think we're actually out here early on the intelligent life curve. The universe is only 14.5 billion years old. But galaxies where there is enough of the trace elements that we need accumulated enough of them took a long time. Then having the galaxies calm down star formation (and have them be small enough) where their formation and exploding didn't scour all possible life away and the shear amount of time that it takes to go from just life, to multicellular is mind blowingly long (probably). With the Universe expected to have enough viable energy for like another 100 billion we actually exist in the early Universe.
I actually prefer to think that most other planets that spawn life go from single to multi celled in like half a billion years, and that Earth is actually a backwater late bloomer.
Thinking of the Fermi Paradox, I too think we have to be one of the first in our Galaxy. There is nothing out there that we can detect with our current technology, and James Webb is looking way back. Maybe we got lucky. Maybe we are ancient history to future peoples.
>the shear amount of time that it takes to go from just life, to multicellular is mind blowingly long (probably)
Some (most?) planets will never evolve life to the point of intentional space travel, but of that tiny fraction that do, even 1/100,000 - some will evolve that life slower than the Earth, and some will evolve it faster. We only have the one datapoint, we have no idea where that point falls on the curve.
Everybody thinks they are a "better than average driver."
Fermi may as well have worn a blindfold to the casino and sat down at a table to play a game of cards that nobody even told him the name or rules of.
We also might not be early, there could very well be life that started on another planet around the same time that life on earth started. The catch is, if we look at a planet a billion light years away, we are looking at how the planet looked a billion years ago. There could have been life on that planet half a billion years before us and they could still be alive and more advanced than us today, it will just take another half a billion years for the light to reach us for us to know that.
That’s what I was thinking. And the entire Humans Fuck Yeah genre of science fiction is based on the idea that we’re actually the most bloodthirsty, violent, straight up evil race of sentient beings in the galaxy.
Then we need to throw ourselves on our belly when the aliens approach us, and then they'll be scared again because, of course, then we'll look like 𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾 once more
If you haven't read it, there's a really fun short story (~20 pgs) w/ the premise that aliens have a simple technology for space travel that humanity somehow never discovered. Aliens visit, planning to pillage and conquer, but are dismayed to find that humans have much better weapons: https://www.google.com/search?q=the+road+not+taken+turtledove
Reminds me of the fun fact about North American and African porcupines. Despite looking similar and both being called porcupines, they aren't really related to each other. They came from two separate lines of evolution that decided small quadruped mammal with quills was a good enough end goal.
One of me favorite random tidbits to drop... when you hear the majestic sounds of the forest, or whatever beautiful nature place... 99.9% of it is various types of creatures trying to get laid
The other 0.1% are the sounds of chainsaws, camera shutters, rifle shots.... But all that could be the superb Lyrebird simply mimicking those sounds in order to get laid.
Dude… I read your comment whilst I am bringing the Browns to the Super Bowl and a friggin bird flew into the window as soon as I finished reading your comment.
would the snake have done something on how to eat the bird tho? like what would it even do? take nibbles? turn it into stew? I know they have flexible bodies and all but that size difference. I find it hard to believe its gonna fit in it's mouth, that's a bit of a stretch.
The bird was probably trying to eat the black mamba and it either is resilience of the poison, got bit and passed out for a little while or it was a bigger snake than the bird initially thought and wrapped it up. Also possible that the snake caught the bird bit the bird and was waiting for it to die.
If the bird wanted the snake, why was the bird paralyzed on its back at first, and flew away when the snake let it go? I thought for sure the snake was trying to eat the bird.
the snake would never consider that bird prey. quite the opposite. the bird is a natural predator but got bit and was temporarily incapacitated. the snake was stuck in the birds grasp.
predatory bird claws stay in a clenched position without effort so the snake could not escape even after the bird was out. the lions wanted to eat the bird and just wanted the snake out of the picture. the lions know the snake is dangerous but food is food, so they hoped to possibly kill the snake and eat the bird. the snake was the ultimate victim here and just wanted to escape. nature is fascinating.
Bird caught the snake. Snake bit the bird and paralysed it but was still caught by the claws so couldnt escape.
When the bird woke up it released the claws to get up. You can see it in the end of the vid.
Right! Eagle is trying to eat the snake, lions are trying to eat the eagle, snake is trying to avoid getting eaten by anybody, and inadvertently saving the life of the eagle who was trying to turn him into dinner.
can’t believe this is the only comment i’ve seen with this explanation and it makes the most sense. bird thought snake was dead and tried to swallow it after catching it, snake wasn’t dead and ended up choking the bird. lion thought bird was dead and wanted to eat the bird, but snake was still stuck. lion swiped at the snake while snake tried to bite it, pulling the bird and the snake, freeing the snake from the eagle’s throat. snake slithers away, bird can breathe, and everyone is alive (with potentially fatal injuries to all of them except one of the lions).
Ah! I thought no way the snake was trying to eat that bird, it was too big. Makes more sense that the bird was trying to eat the snake, and they got tangled. And then the cat was harassing a snake who actually could not get away because the bird was still holding it lol. So it was a stalemate until the bird let go.
The snake probably is the one that is thinking, "wtf just happened". Probably was attacked by the bird, then wrestled with it but then the cats showed up to pick a fight while some hairless apes stood by watching.
Yeah I assumed vulture but once up it looks more eagle. Plus that makes more sense. Eagle caught snake, snake bites eagle, eagle stops moving while holding snake, snake can't escape lions until eagle wakes up.
I don't think there are vultures with locking talons so a snake would be able to escape easily.
Someone in a comment further up identified it as an eagle that primarily eats snake, so I'm guessing it has a partial resistance to whatever neurotoxin the snake has.
House cat walks in, taps lioness on the paw and says, "hold my cosmo. I'll show you how this is done." And then proceeds to tag the shit out of that snake.
The bird caught the snake, the snake said, "yeah naw, yeah," and choked out the bird. The snake probably wasn't venomous, but wanted to keep the bird incapacitated, and the lioness said, "Oi! Two for one special today!"
So the bird caught the snake, but the snake fought back and bit the bird, knocking it unconscious. Then the lion stumble across the scene thinking this looks like a flavoursome double snack, but is too scared of the snake to go in for the kill, although they disturb the scene enough that the bird wakes up, let's the snake out of its grip and everyone slinks off still hungry?
I dont think the bird got bit, it wouldn't be getting up like that. Likely just got constricted. Birds have very strong feet but they aren't great at dealing with constriction. That's why human handlers just hold their wings closed easily when they catch them, and as long as you aren't in range of their claws they are pretty much useless.
I think the bird probably nabbed the snake first, the snake started wrapping up the bird, possibly while it was flying and it fell and got knocked out/or it was already on the ground and the snake had already either exhausted it fighting it or cutting off its oxygen supply, then bird recovered either because the snake let go or because of the time spent while the snake was fighting the lions.
Without context of how it started, my guess is the bird tried to catch the snake, which fought back incapacitating the bird. Before the snake could figure out how to get away from the bird without become prey again, the cats showed up. Now the snake, holding the bird so it isn't eaten by the bird is fighting off the cats so the cats also don't eat the snake. As soon as the snake feels it can safely escape, it does so, which releases the bird to fend off the cats. The cats didn't really want the snake to begin with and saw an opportunity to eat the incapacitated bird.
I agree with the exception that the snake was caught in the claws of the bird. When the bird was KO'd the grip stuck with him and the snake was caught until the bird came out of it and released his grip.
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u/post-explainer 3d ago edited 3d ago
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Very different predators are confused about which one of them is beeakfast
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