Erpeton

Erpeton is a genus of water snake of the family Colubridae, which includes a single known species, the tentacled snake, Erpeton tentaculatum, which is native to South-East Asia. They are aquatic and extremely fast in catching their prey, small fish^[1]. The snakes accomplish the capture of their prey by cheating on a C-start escape reflex of the fish: after approaching a fish the snake bends, and makes a quick movement with a measured segment of its body, startling the fish exactly in the direction of snake's head^[2].

Footnotes

References

• Catania, Kenneth C (2011). "Natural-Born Killer: Lethal from day one, the tentacled snake uses surprisingly sly tactics to capture fish." Scientific American. April 2011, pp. 65-67.

External links

• http://www.torontozoo.com/Animals/details.asp?AnimalId=580
• http://whozoo.org/Intro2002/StephReder/SJR_Tentacledsnake.htm
• http://scientificamerican.com/apr2011/catania