MarchHare007 
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One quick snake story....(setting the scene) my MIL is 5 foot nothing and weighs about 6 stone dripping wet...
Had a girlfriend come up for lucnh (the original city kid)..
MIL said she'd pop down to say hello as she often did.
Heard a bang but didn't think anything of it, thnn heard MIL call out from outside the back door - And there she was holding a red-bellied black snake high in the air - by its tail tip. It didn't have a head the 410 had taken care of that.
All my girlfriend could say was 'She shot it....she actually shot it'.
Well yes - that's what we can do around here...... :D
Reply #1461. Aug 21 11, 7:10 PM
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Jazmee27
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I may not like snakes, but Elle or anyone else is more than welcome to post stories about them in my blog
The more, the better ;-)
Same goes for spiders, or bugs, or... anything, really (scorpions, anyone?)
Reply #1462. Aug 21 11, 7:32 PM
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Blackdresss
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Stew, two words: Snake Load!
Jazzee, two words: Thank you!
Stew, three more words: Eep! Ach! Ugh!
Stew, 10 more words, one hyphenated: What is a red-bellied black snake, and is it venomous?
Reply #1463. Aug 21 11, 8:09 PM
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Jakeroo
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Blackdresss: In answer to your first question, I signed up for a photography class hosted by "Friends" (ie. donating patrons) of our city zoo. Class size was 15 max, no children allowed, as the classes were held after zoo hours, but before dark (when most of the animals were getting ready for "bed") and they didn't want them disturbed too much. I didn't attend every week, which I regret, because it was never offered again. Anyway, we were allowed "behind the scenes", as it were, and were allowed to interact personally with SOME of the animals (lemurs, armadillos, red pandas, reptiles, birds of prey and a few others. As to the second question, I don't know why she was on such good behaviour with me. Could be that I was standing in sunlight, or that she was fairly recently fed, or she just felt "safe". She didn't act that way with the other 3 people who were willing to touch her, perhaps because they tried to control where she wanted to go. (shrugs, who knows?).
Smiling at your bull testicles story... Montana tendergroin - Breakfast of Champions lol. Up here we call them Prairie Oysters because..well.. we live on the prairies. Go figger.
The zoo thing does remind me of a fairly amusing tiger story. At the time there were 4 different kinds of big cats, each having their own enclosures, which had about 8 feet of "dead space" between each one. Surrounding all of that was another, larger fence (like school fencing but really really thick, and with a fenced roof, of course). The class members were allowed inside the outermost fence, and the inner fence had holes big enough to insert your lenses through in order to get unobstructed photographs. We were told not to stand too close to the fence should one of the tigers come by for a look/sniff-see.
So, there we are, all in a line, at the farthest point from the actual tigers. The big (and only) male gets up (probably wondering what all these goofy people are doing standing there) and starts slowly ambling our way.
Now, knowing cats as I do (not necessarily big cats, just in "general") and how territorial they can be, I take about 12 steps backward, only to run into the keeper. I say "sorry", he says "no problem, it's probably the best place for you right now". He laughs, winks and says "watch this".
The male tiger walks up (EVER so nonchalantly) to where everyone is standing (who have by now removed their camera lenses from the fence gaps, but haven't moved back very far themselves). Male tiger lifts his tail and proceeds to mark his territory. I had NO idea that a tiger's "range" is apparently 6 to 8 FEET lol - those folks didn't have a chance! I imagine that it took MONTHS to get that smell out of their vehicles after driving home.
(and yes, I know, hilarious because it didn't happen to me, but still....)
Reply #1464. Aug 21 11, 9:03 PM
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AntonLaVey
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The Taipan. Now, there is one bad mother...
"And I don't think a snake phobia is irrational! They want to kill you! It's smart to be afraid of them!"
No, they do not want to kill you. They want and need to save that precious venom so they can kill food. But, this does not go for the Black Mamba and the aforementioned Taipan. Not only two of the world's deadliest, they are definitely two of the meanest. Those are the two snakes I would never ever want to see in person, even if I was behind two inches of bulletproof glass.
Reply #1466. Aug 21 11, 10:27 PM
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doublemm
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I always thought of taipans as pretty shy. According to my "2004 Top Ten of Everything" their venom is the most potent of all snakes. Mambas are pretty aggressive, they'll kill humans, cottonmouths, copperheads, sidewinders and California mountain snakes (as well as the odd snake charmer). Or maybe I'm making this up.
If you want an bad snake then the saw-scaled viper is your guy! Lots of human deaths on this snake's hands (figure (finger) of speech - they have no hands or fingers).
Reply #1467. Aug 22 11, 12:38 AM
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doublemm
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I only have one other animal story of any interest, and it just happens to be about deer. Anyone who's seen the Lion King will have no trouble picturing a scene of a 10 year old me feeling the ground shake before seeing a stampede of deer coming straight towards me over a slope. I survived, in case you were wondering :)
Reply #1468. Aug 22 11, 12:41 AM
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Qmel
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Why do men wear socks with sandals?
Reply #1469. Aug 22 11, 6:40 PM
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AntonLaVey
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Deaths do not equate meanness. That just shows proof of how much contact humans have with them. I was watching a show about snakes years ago on the Discovery Channel. One guy said he was bit seven times by a single Taipan. I have never heard that of any other snake. Are Taipans shy? Yes, but so are most snakes. Anger a Taipan? I'd rather wrestle a bear.
Reply #1470. Aug 22 11, 8:59 PM
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Jakeroo
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Anton: can I adopt you?
commiserations to daymare and Qmel. Your polite attempts at changing the subject didn't work any better than my tiggerstory ~
mmMike: for some reason I pictured Jurassic Park when you mentioned the stampede : ) Glad you survived.
Reply #1471. Aug 22 11, 10:52 PM
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AntonLaVey
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Believe me, I'm not worth the trouble. lol But, we can be friends. How does that sound?
Reply #1472. Aug 23 11, 12:39 AM
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Jakeroo
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lol, that sounds fine Anton, ty
Reply #1473. Aug 23 11, 3:46 PM
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MarchHare007
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Monty's just droppin gin to say 'Hi'.
I won't let him stay long RJ...... :)
Reply #1474. Aug 23 11, 6:40 PM
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Blackdresss
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What IS that, Stew??
And where did you get it, and was it intentional? And were you able to get rid of it?
That's horrible!
Reply #1475. Aug 24 11, 4:58 AM
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MarchHare007
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Awww he's not Really horrible Elle.
He's Monty - python - of course...lol
Our 'resident' diamond python. When this photo was taken he was nearly seven feet long and just wandering along the back path. Kinda cool - and we didn't have bush rats around for weeks!
Reply #1476. Aug 24 11, 4:53 PM
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_Morpheus_
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| Hey what's the deal! Snakes are beautiful and rodents are just food fodder. I object.**Starts putting together the protest signs.** RATS ARE PEOPLE TOO** oops shouldn't have said that ;-D |
Reply #1477. Aug 24 11, 5:47 PM
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Jabberwok
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I used to have a pet rat, he was so much better tempered than previous hamsters I had owned.
Free-range on many occasions, but he always came back.
Reply #1478. Aug 24 11, 5:49 PM
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Jazmee27
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"Rats are people too"?
Only the even-tempered ones :-)
One could use such logic about almost anything (forget "almost"-they can :))
Reply #1479. Aug 24 11, 6:12 PM
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Qmel
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Let me guess...RJ has a pet rat named Ben.
Reply #1480. Aug 24 11, 6:30 PM
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