Can You See Me Now

Abstract

An unexpected opportunity to video record an attempted natural habitat predation of an adult Thamnophis sirtalis by a subadult Coluber constrictor allowed detailed examination of predator and defensive strategies of both snakes. Slow playback of the recording, with occasional frame-by-frame viewing, clearly showed the entirely visual hunting mechanism of C. constrictor. It also showed the detailed and unmistakable cognition and intentionality employed by the T. sirtalis to repeatedly evade and misdirect the vision-based attack of the C. constrictor. Our observations, along with the openly available archived video, add to the growing body of knowledge on snake cognition and intentionality in natural habitats.