Are there really fewer snakes?
Twenty or thirty years ago, when the rural population was much larger than today, and the phenomenon of migrant workers going to the city to work was not common, so don't look at the houses in the village at that time, they were not as big as they are now, but the village was also lively, and the family was together, rushing to a market in their spare time, and sowing and harvesting together when they were busy.
In the past, many people lived in one-story brick houses, in addition to the number of people in the home, more livestock, the rest should be more snakes, especially the surrounding environment of the house, like the old house in my hometown, when the back is a bamboo forest and cypress trees, and then a little later is a mountain, although we are hilly area, the mountain is not how big, but it seems to be a continuous feeling, when I was a child, I encountered a lot of snakes near home, kitchen, thatched piles!
Nowadays, many young people have gone to the city to work, the rural hometown is mainly some elderly people and left-behind children, if the conditions are OK, children are generally still around, and many people directly transfer their hukou out to settle in the city. Therefore, after entering the city, everyone rarely had the opportunity to see snakes, and the first time the baby in the family saw the snake, most of them were in the local zoo, including my son.
However, snakes have not really become less because we see less, we all know that the trend of global warming has not weakened, extreme weather events are frequent, but now more and more snake species are recorded, which is related to the fact that snake experts will find new snake species in the wild every year, and it is closely related to the protection of wild animals that are advocated today.
In the past, there was a saying in the countryside: "When you see a snake, you don't fight three points of sin", what this sentence means, I should not need to explain. But now it's different, as long as the snake doesn't attack us, it usually takes a long pole and drives it away. If they were in town, firefighters would be called to arrest them, and they would either end up in some zoo or be released into the wild.
What medicine is the snake most afraid of, and when it smells it, it runs? Poisonous snakes are not afraid of male yellow powder, so can eating snake bile raw can detoxify snakes?
Snakes in the mainland distribution range is very wide, in general, poisonous snakes or not as many non-venomous snakes, such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Fujian these places are many snakes, relatively speaking, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia are not so easy to encounter snakes. However, animals are actually the same as people, we are afraid of encountering snakes, snakes are actually afraid of encountering people, are afraid of hurting themselves, under normal circumstances, if snakes are not frightened and attacked, they will not take the initiative to attack people more often.
Snakes have not become fewer, even more numerous, sometimes inevitably encountered, but it is impossible for ordinary people to distinguish what kind of snakes they are. In the past, there were also many ways to drive away snakes in the countryside, but not all of them could play this role, such as male yellow, you may have a hard time thinking, using male yellow powder to deal with poisonous snakes, in fact, there is not much difference with garlic into mud, because these two things will not make snakes uncomfortable, and a little smell will make them more vigilant, and the effect of garlic is a little better than male yellow.
If you ask the old man in the family, the snake is most afraid of what medicine smells and runs, the answer they give in addition to the male yellow, there may be alcohol, smoke oil bags, etc., to say that these methods have something in common, that is, they all have a pungent smell, but even if some snakes can be intimidated, but the time will not be too long, because these temperatures will fade with time, and the snake is not stupid, it will be vigilant when it smells, but this does not prevent it from slowly approaching across the obstacle, especially after the smell fades.
Don't look at some snakes with big eyes, in fact, most snakes have bad eyesight, and some are not much different from "blind", so the snake's sense of hearing and smell is very sensitive. For example, when you encounter a cobra, it may not be able to see what you look like at all, but through the movement of your walking, or other sounds emitted by the body, which is why snake experts will recommend that when you encounter a poisonous snake, do not panic and pull your legs to run, and do not take the initiative to attack, because the movement is too big to make the snake frightened, if you really attack the snake and may not be able to fight, and if you are bitten by a poisonous snake, you do not know what kind of snake it is. Going to the hospital for treatment in this way will also delay some time.
Before strengthening the protection of wild animals, many people use snakes to make wine, of course, there are some places where people like to eat snake meat, but do not believe that "eating snake bile can solve snake venom" this folk remedy, raw snake bile not only does not have the function of detoxifying snakes, there are often parasites inside, to know that the snake bile of a poisonous snake, the bile secreted at different times is not the same, including many people fear the golden ring snake, pit viper and king cobra.
Is the African honeypot an overwhelming predator of all snakes?
Honey badgers, less than a meter long, weight is more than ten pounds to more than twenty pounds of appearance, but known as the "most fearless" animals, the main distribution range is concentrated in the African tropical rainforest, as well as the open grassland area, their food sources can be said to be very extensive, and the temperament is very fierce, not to mention other animals, cannibalism is a very common phenomenon, so the survival rate of honey badger cubs is only about 50%, including highly venomous snakes are also their plate food.
Of course, there are also honey badgers in Asia, but from the researchers' research data, the size of African honey badgers is slightly larger, and the Chinese people like to call honey badgers "flat-headed brothers", which are not greedy for life and afraid of death, and even poisonous snakes are not afraid. In fact, this has to start from the special ability of honey badgers, many people think that tigers and lions are fierce, but they also can't afford the venom spewed by venomous snake bites, and honey badgers are different, because they are born with the ability to immunize to snake venom.
However, for honey badgers, not all snake venom can be overwhelmed, and the snake venom that their bodies can resist is mainly those that are not very poisonous, or snake venom that does not have a small amount of venom. Moreover, most of the time, the snakes that honey badgers prey on are not particularly large, which is why even if they do not succeed in predation, they can often safely exit the predatory war.
If you have to say which animal can overwhelmingly restrain all snakes, it is probably "human", nature has an invisible food chain, just as the king cobra can eat many other snakes, including the weak individuals of its own kind, but it can not restrain all other snakes.
There are thousands of snakes in the world, but there are only a few hundred species in the mainland, that is to say, many snake species will not see each other in their lifetime, let alone fight a fight.
Even, there are many snake species that snake experts have not found in the wild environment, so this is an uncertain answer, even if we analyze and compare the information we know, what we get is only a theoretical answer, and the animal itself has requirements for its own living environment, you put it in a strange environment, the first question to consider is whether it can survive, not whether it can beat anyone.