In this rather creepy cave (at least with human eyes), snakes hang down from the ceiling wanting to get you. OK, originally not you, but bats.
Image credit: Cave of the Hanging Snakes on Facebook
In a remote cave tucked away in the jungles of the state of Yucatan, Mexico, some snakes have developed a totally new serpentine lifestyle. One based on hanging.
Yellow-red rat snakes (Pseudelaphe flavirufa) normally hunt small animals like rodents and lizards on the ground, but in the ‘The Cave of the Hanging Snakes’ they have changed their survival strategy altogether.
Among locals living in the nearby village of Kantemo, the place is known as the ‘Bat Cave’, as it is home to swarms of small-sized bats that can often appear in thick clouds. The snakes decided to take advantage of the delicious flying foodstuff by setting up permanent residence on the cave’s ceiling and upper parts.
Rat snake swallowing a bat. Image credit: Pasha Kirillov
From the cracks and crevices they have inhabited, they wait until swarms of the bats enter or leave the cavern, and then dangle down and catch them in their mouths.
Here’s another photo of a hanging snake, as it strikes at its prey from its crevice.
Image credit: Cave of the Hanging Snakes on Facebook
Check it all out in motion.
In addition to the swarms of bats and dangling serpents, the cave also has a flooded portion where blind albino crustaceans live (if the hanging snakes weren’t creepy enough).
Albino cave shrimp Creaseriella anops. Image credit: Pavel Kirillov
For now, the snakes – and the crustaceans – seem to be undisturbed by the increasing numbers of visitors coming to the cave to see their unusual behavior.
Let’s hope it stays like that.
