Text | Scientific Wormhole
In the Bohai Sea in the northwest of Lushunkou District, Liaoning,
there is a mysterious island,
the island is full of poisonous snakes .
It is Dalian Snake Island .
covers an area of less than 1 square kilometer,
but is home to 20,000 black-browed vipers.
This makes people wonder,
An isolated island in the sea that is not bordered by the mainland,
Why are there so many venomous snakes?
How did they survive on Dalian Snake Island?
01 Where did the Snake Island viper come from?
Dalian Snake Island belongs to Liaoning Snake Island Laotieshan National Nature Reserve,
A long time ago, it was not an island, but small peaks.
At that time, the small peaks were connected to the land.
The winters were warm and the summers were cool, and the vegetation was luxuriant.
Attracted many animals to come here to thrive,
The mountains became a paradise for animals.
Later, the orogeny occurred,
the sky fell and the earth collapsed in an instant,
Liaodong Peninsula and Shandong Peninsula were separated by sea water.
The surrounding areas of the small mountain peak turned into the ocean, and the
small mountain peak itself became an isolated island.
This is the prototype of Dalian Snake Island.
When the island was first formed, life on the island was not that difficult,
but the situation soon took a turn for the worse.
Herbivores lack food,
have no strength to escape and hide,
have no choice but to become the meal of carnivores.
After eating all the herbivores,
the carnivores began to kill each other, and
then almost disappeared.
In just a few months,
, which was originally a paradise for animals with abundant ecology, has turned into a lifeless desert island.
But the creatures on the isolated island have not completely disappeared.
A kind of reptile crawled out from the cracks in the rocks.
It is the black-browed viper.
The black-browed viper became the owner of the isolated island.
It has survived to this day on this small island with an area of only 0.73 square kilometers.
The island is therefore called "Dalian Snake Island".
In other words, the viper on the island is already there,
did not come to the island from other places after the island was formed.
02What does the Black-browed Viper eat?
When the animals were fighting on the island,
The Black-browed Viper hid and endured its hunger.
Slowly, it acquired a strong anti-hunger ability.
Of course, enduring hunger is not a long-term solution.
Fortunately, in the spring and autumn seasons,
there will be migratory birds stopping at Snake Island .
Every spring and autumn,
migratory birds will rest on Snake Island,
landing on rocks and branches.
The lurking black-browed viper uses their cheek pits to sense prey.
When they wait for migratory birds to approach them,
they jump out and bite them like lightning,
injecting deadly toxins from their fangs .
The black-browed viper is not very long, the longest one is only over 1 meter,
but their venom is very frightening.
grams of black-browed adder venom can kill 1,000 rabbits,
.1 grams of snake venom can cause death.
The migratory birds attacked by the venom soon passed away.
After that, the viper can start to enjoy a delicious meal,
but the birds they can eat are also limited,
The largest thing they can eat is quail.
The black-browed viper has a strong ability to tolerate hunger.
After a full meal, it can go without eating for several months.
In addition, the black-browed viper on the island has also evolved the habit of aestivation.
It is the only snake in the world that hibernates and aestivates ,
This helps them lower their metabolism and reduce energy consumption.
Relying on gifts from migratory birds and its own characteristics,
the black-browed viper has survived on Dalian Snake Island.
03 regained its vitality after several hardships.
Of course, life on the island is not always easy.
Some snakes will starve to death if not even a migratory bird can eat them.
There are also snake-eagle battles and snake-rat battles on the island.
rats are Rattus norvegicus that follow the fishing boats near the island.
In order to survive better,
Snake Island viper has become more and more ferocious.
In addition, Dalian Snake Island has also experienced hardships caused by man-made or natural disasters.
In 1937, the Japanese army invaded Dalian, Liaoning, and
secretly abducted more than 7,000 black-browed vipers from Snake Island ;
In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese folk rumored that soaking vipers in wine had curative effects ,
Snake Island vipers Snakes were indiscriminately killed and soaked in snake wine, and their numbers decreased.
In 1958, a forest fire broke out on Snake Island, and many vipers on the island were killed in the flames.
Fortunately, in 980, with the approval of the State Council,
Liaoning Snake Island Laotieshan National Nature Reserve was established.
The vipers of Snake Island are protected by the state.
Since then, many dedicated snake guardians have emerged.
They stick to the difficult conditions of Snake Island,
conduct a "census" for snakes,
record the predation and reproduction of vipers.
The viper on Snake Island can endure hunger, but not thirst.
In order to protect the viper from drought,
the snake guardian dug a ten-meter-deep well on the island.
When the reserve was first established,
there were only more than
more than 19,000 vipers left on the scarred Snake Island.
Through the efforts of snake protectors,
the number of
Snake Island vipers has gradually recovered, and now it is about
.
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