More Blue Tongue Skink Predation

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/fiel ... ia-196367/

Warning: This link contains images of a bluey being killed.

[Scotts1au]

These sorts of images appear from time to time. IMHO the photos of the blueys being eaten are staged 99% of the time. None the less, good illustration of what goes on.

[Scotts1au]

I didn't mean to sound too down on this but, there are a lot f photos that appear on the web of blurts being eaten by snakes, claiming to be in the wild. Too come isn't that blurts are seen as disposable props for photos. Snakes can be coaxed to take blueys offered to them coz they go into eat mode once they have their prey and are hard to deter, making them easier to photograph. Btw appart from a few specialist predators not many animals in the world will able to walk away from a Russell with an eastern brown snake, feeding a bluey one for a photo is a highly illegal act. Off high horse now.

[Jeff]

[El Lobo]

Hey Scott - I have read your post a few times and can't decide if it is one too many VB's or you are using a phone/tablet/pad with pre-emptive text turned on. Those "blurts" must be something to encounter in the wild.

I think I get the general drift though and agree many of these predation pictures look too staged. Not sure what "a Russell with an eastern brown snake" is but I have the greatest respect (bordering on fear) of this species. I have had two encounters, one with an eastern and another with a western, and I would be content to not have another. They are much more ill-tempered and aggressive than our Copperheads. The eastern's strike only missed me by a few centimeters and the friend I was with reckoned that if the reverse long jump was an Olympic event I was a certainty for gold.

The only attack on a Blotchy I have witnessed was a Copperhead that envenomated and then coiled up next to the Blotchy waiting for the venom to do its work. No coiling around like the brown in the link even though the Blotchy was only about 30cms and the snake a bit over a meter.

[Scotts1au]

Was blurtung on my phone in a cafe with three little kids, drinking their babycinos. Darn auto correct.

[Lea]

I've seen kookaburras sitting on phone lines with little lizards dangling from their mouths, but the only predation I see a lot of is those darn people in their cars, swerving to hit silly shinglebacks who have decided to wander over the roads. The worst thing is, almost all of them could easily miss them, but they actually change their cars course to get a better hit! People are the worst. I am not at all surprised they set up attacks etc, just for the fun of it.

It is suspicious to see a snake of that size with a lizard as big as that. Usually, they would only go for prey they know they could manage. I know they can swallow extremely large prey items, but the lizard really does look that bit too big ...