The black-headed snake species Tantilla oolitica is considered the rarest snake species in North America. Now, for the first time in four years, in the summer of 2022, a specimen of the reptile was discovered again by a hiker in the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park of Key Largo. But unfortunately the snake was dead: there was a big centipede stuck in its throat. The alarmed park rangers sent the two animals to the Florida Museum of Natural History, where they were intensively examined by a team led by Coleman Sheehy, as the working group reports in "Ecology".
»It is extremely rare that you find copies that died when eating prey, and in view of the rarity of this kind, I would never have expected something like that. We were all totally amazed, «says Sheehy. The team packed the unequal couple in a computer tomograph to carry out a digital autopsy. This wanted to ensure that the animals remain intact for future investigations.
The result was quite surprising. Centipedes can bite forcefully, injecting powerful poisons into their victims in the process; in fact, these invertebrates have already killed snakes. Conversely, it is believed that snakes that hunt centipedes are immune to their toxin.
The snack really had a small wound on the side that had led to bleeding. But that was not the real cause of death, because then she was able to kill her supposed prey and partially swallow her. The scans then showed that the trachea of the snake was so crushed by the prey in the throat that the reptile no longer had air and suffocated. After all, the snake was only three times as long as the hundred feet.
Nevertheless, there is a small consolation for the scientists: the snake species apparently continues to exist, although it has not been observed for several years. It used to be widespread in southern Florida, but then its preferred habitat was heavily urbanized. Outside of the Everglades National Park, only two percent of the original pine rockland where the snakes live has survived. It is therefore uncertain whether the animals still exist on the mainland or whether the last remnants of the population are limited to the Keys island chain.
