On October 10, tourists from Guangzhou Zhujiang Park were enjoying leisure time. Suddenly, a loud and loud cry came from the sky. Everyone looked up and saw a handsome eagle hovering in the air. Its wings and tail had black and white feathers on its wings and tail, which were very conspicuous. This handsome eagle is the Chinese national second-class protected animal , snake eagle .
Snake eagle belongs to a large and medium-sized eagle. From the appearance, is mainly gray-brown, with a short crown behind the head, and white marks above the head and on the chest. Its body size is between 60 and 73 cm. It is not prominent among the mighty and domineering eagles. Only the sharp eyes and the beak of the hook indicate the identity of its raptor.
Snake eagle is different from other raptors that prey on various small and medium-sized animals. Its staple food is snakes, and whether it is non-venomous snake or highly venomous snakes, it will eat it without any venomous snakes. It will only eat some small animals such as frogs, lizards, etc. when there is no snake to eat. If there is a "secretary bird" snake eagle that specializes in snake eating in Africa, there is a "snake catcher" snake eagle that specializes in snake eating in China. Eating snakes is like whispering noodles.
African snake eagle
Eating snakes is like saucy noodles
Snake eagle will stay on a high cliff or hover in the sky. It has excellent vision. Even at a height of 300 meters, you can easily find snakes crawling on the ground. After finding the snake, they will swiftly dive down, grabbed the snake's body with thunder, and held the snake tightly like iron clamps.
The claws of the snake eagle are shorter than those of other raptors, and can tightly grasp the snake with slender body and smooth scales. Moreover, their legs are not as feathered as ordinary eagle , but are covered with a layer of mesh scales, which are very hard and closely connected, so that even snakes cannot bite them, let alone inject venom.
The snake caught by the snake eagle is basically unable to move, even if you want to entangle the snake eagle, it cannot be done. The snake eagle will constantly flap its wings to prevent the snake from rushing back, and at the same time consume the snake's physical strength until the snake is exhausted and loses its strength to resist.
The next moves of snake eagles are also very special. They generally do not take the snakes to a high altitude like other snake-catching eagles, and then directly fall into a pile of meat paste and then eat.
Snake eagles pay attention to being fast, accurate and ruthless. They have very developed jaw muscles, which can directly bite the snake's head and make it lose its attack ability. At this point, all the eating preparations of the snake eagles have been completed. It will not slowly tear the flesh and blood, but start from the head and swallow the snake that has not yet died.
looks like "I'm in a hurry" and doesn't take the snake seriously at all. The whole process is like squidating noodles , very rough and wild.
When eating, the snake is not dead. After eating, the snake eagle will make a strange move. Facing the sun, standing in place, holding its head and chest up, the whole bird stands still. According to folk sayings, this is because the snake eagle will thank Sun God after enjoying a delicious meal.
But in fact, this is just caused by the way the snake eagle eats the snake's feeding method. The snake has a tenacious vitality. Even if the head has been bitten by the snake eagle, it can still maintain a certain ability to move. Some snakes even have to pull a cushion on the back until they die, wrapping the snake eagle's neck with their slender body, trying to suffocate it.
However, this kind of thing can only be said to be a small trouble for snake eagles. Snake eagles really feel that the crest behind their heads will explode when they are nervous, so they are also called "Creamheaded Snake Eagles" and "Big Crown Eagles". The struggle of the snake is not a problem for the snake eagle, and it can be solved by taking more time.
Snake eagle with a crown exploded
Because snakes can still twist reflexibly in the eagle's belly when swallowed, snake eagle can only hold its head and chest up, and use the muscles on its chest to fight against the snake. At the same time, holding its head and chest up can also expand the eagle's trachea to prevent being blocked by the snake's body, causing hypoxia and suffocation. The battle between the snake eagle and the snake continued until one side had already eaten, which was strange enough.
If it is April to June, the breeding season of snake eagles, then something even stranger may happen. In order to feed their children, the snake eagle will also leave snake tail outside the beak, fly back to the nest, and then let the chicks hold the snake's tail and pull the whole snake out.
Scientists have studied the digestive system of snake eagles. found that the surface of their tongue has a protrusion with a tip facing the throat, which can prevent the snake from sliding out of its mouth. The snake eagle's esophagus is thick and elastic. There is also a developed crop . The snake enters the crop through the esophagus. It will not enter their stomachs for digestion until the snake dies completely.
Drinking poison to quench thirst, the prototype of poison?
has an idiom called "drinking poison (zhèn) to quench thirst", which refers to a bird called "金". Because it eats too many highly poisonous snakes, it causes extremely poisonous all over the body. As long as they soak their feathers in the wine, they can make a glass of poisonous wine. Experts and scholars believe that the "王" here refers to the snake eagle.
"Biography of the Five Kings of the Han Book" records a story. The general idea is that in the second year of Emperor Hui of Han, King Hui of Qi, Liu Fei of Qi, entered the court, and Emperor Hui of Hui of him was very courteous to him. Empress Lu was dissatisfied with this and wanted to poison him with poison wine. Someone commented below: " poison bird black body and red eyes, eat viper snakes and wild kudzu, and drink it with its feathers (painted) and die when it is drunk."
Because snake eagles like to eat many poisonous snakes, according to the ancients' ideas, they will store the toxins, making themselves extremely poisonous, but they will eat a special plant to save themselves from poisoning.
However, according to research, snake eagles do not carry toxins on their bodies, and the reason for their absence of poisoning is very simple. Snake venom basically needs to enter the blood to function. As long as there are no wounds in the digestive tract, the snake eagle will not be poisoned. Moreover, the main component of snake venom is protein . After entering the stomach, it will be quickly decomposed and inactivated, and will not have any impact on the snake eagle.
Therefore, the snake eagle is not as toxic as the legendary one, and even reaches the point where a feather can kill people.
Birds with poison
Of course, the world is so big, there are all kinds of strange things. does not have poisonous birds in mainland China, but there are indeed many abroad, and there are more than one. On Indonesia , a bird called Blackheaded Flying Flying (jú wēng) lives on New Guinea Island . It looks a bit similar to a sparrow, but its body surface is eye-catching black and orange.
Blackheaded hornet hornet
There is a beetle in their recipes, which contains toxins in the body. The blackheaded turtlefish relies on eating this beetle and accumulates a whole body of neurotoxin . It is not only poisonous in the skin and feathers, but also in the internal organs. It is said that scientists have touched them once, and the skin on the contact area becomes red and itchy.
However, compared to the legendary poison that can kill people, the toxin content in the body of a blackheaded turtlefish is not enough. Even if you pull out all its hair and soak in wine, it is basically impossible to cause death.
In addition to blackheaded hornets, there are also blue top horned hornets (méi dōng), African winged geese, European quail and so on poisonous birds, and their toxins are also obtained from food. is just that it doesn’t match the appearance, and secondly, their main distribution is basically not in China, and the toxins are not that scary, so it is unlikely to be a venom.
Reference
"Cold-faced killer" - Snake Eagle" Di Zhiying
"Drinking poison to quench thirst" and Raptor Snake Eagle"
"Study on the morphology of the digestive system of snake eagle" Niu Hongxing
"Snake Catcher in Raptor"
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