GOTCHA!  SNACK FOR A HERALD SNAKE
POSTED 17 FEBRUARY 2007
© WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PEARLY BEACH ONLINE

12 January 2007 - 21:05 - We were sitting inside having supper one night, when I heard a squeaking sound coming from outside. I thought that maybe it was a mouse, as there are lots of them around at the moment, so I went and got a torch to investigate. I followed the sound to the drain, and what I saw was definitely not a mouse. A snake had caught a frog!

I immediately went to get my camera, and these are some of the pics I took of this incredible occurrence in nature:

The first pic was taken at 21:06, the second at 21:07, the third at 21:08, and the frog was totally gone by 21:09. The whole thing took about 5 minutes.

The snake in question is a Herald Snake (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia), also known as a Red-lipped Snake, or Rooilipslang in Afrikaans. It grows to an average of 45-70 cm, although specimens of up to 1 m have been recorded. It is olive green or grey above, with a sprinkling of white speckles along its back. A distinguishing feature is the dark areas on the sides of the head. Another feature of this snake is its red to orange upper lip, hence the name, although the lip can also be yellow, blackish, or in this case, creamy-white.

Due to its defence of coiling up and flattening its head, the snake is often misidentified as an adder, and readily killed. Although mildly venomous, it has no apparent harmful effects on man.

The Herald Snake, one of the most common garden snakes in the area, is active at night, and prefers damp areas, where it feeds on frogs (mainly rain frogs (Breviceps spp.)) and toads. The frog in the picture is a Clicking Stream Frog (Strongylopus grayii), a common frog along the Western Cape coast.

Eggs are laid in early summer, and the hatchlings (8-18 cm) resemble the adults, apart from having black heads.