Take a look at this face.
It's so cute and derpy.
This isn't a nope rope, this is a string king.
At first sight, you might think that this little guy is completely harmless,
and you would be a hundred percent right.
Unless you're a frog.
In that case, this handsome jawline will be the last thing you see.
Watch out Kermit!
This is the Hognose snake.
Hi! I'm Danielle Dufault and you're watching Animalogic and this is my friend, Gussie.
She's so sweet.
Hognoses are relatively short snakes, spread among three genera.
One from North America, one from South America, and one from Madagascar.
The three genera are not closely related, but they all have convergently evolved to
be amazing diggers by making use of the most unusual of shovels: their faces.
Today I'm at Scales Nature Park, hanging out with my new friend, the Western Hognose snake.
Who's actually doing what Hognoses do best right now, which is burrow into the ground.
This is one of the three species in the North American genus, Heterodon.
They live in the plains east of the Rockies, from Central Canada to Northern Mexico.
Their two North American cousins are the Eastern Hognose and the Southern Hognose, which are found
across the Eastern United States and Ontario and from Florida to the Carolinas respectively.
Their genus name, Heterodon, means different tooth, as these snakes have quite unusual teeth.
So most snakes have fangs at the front of their face but
Hognose have their fangs situated further into their mouths, more towards their throat.
It helps them secure their slithery prey and prevents them from escaping.
Most venomous snakes, like vipers,
have highly developed venom-injecting fangs at the front of their mouths.
Their strategy is to kill their prey quickly and then swallow.
Rear-fanged snakes generally aren't very venomous, so they need a series of backward-facing teeth
to grasp their prey and move it towards their throat as they inject it with venom.
In a way this kind of snake is the only one that chews.
So luckily, these guys do use a little bit of venom on their prey.
But it doesn't affect humans in any sort of significant way,
which is why I'm comfortable enough holding this beauty up close to my face.
Since they're harmless to predators, they've evolved to resemble rattlesnakes.
This is a form of baitsy and mimicry,
where a harmless prey species mimics a dangerous species to deter predators.
Luckily for us, if you encounter one in the wild,
you can tell them apart by their adorable pug-like faces.
All snakes have a terminal scale on their face
and this one here in particular, is kind of hardened and shovel-shaped.
So she uses that to dig through the ground.
Hognoses tend to live in areas with gravelly or sandy soil, the ideal habitat for digging.
When looking for a safe place to hide, they move their face from side to side,
while making undulating movements with their body, quickly burrowing into the ground.
Their whole body is lined with bands of muscles that they use constantly to dig into the ground.
Every movement that they make is like a a series of concentric contractions.
Right now, she's using her whole body to dig.
Digging helps them hide from predators, as well as take cover from the brutal sun in the Prairies.
It also gives them a safe place to lay their eggs.
And most importantly, their favourite prey are other burrowing animals like toads and lizards.
Hognoses take the hunt underground.
If you can see behind me here.
But the snake is digging into the ground face first with its scooped snout.
Toads often puff themselves to make themselves harder to eat,
but Hognoses use their rear fangs to pop them like a balloon.
Despite resembling venomous snakes, these are dangerless noodles.
But they have another line of defense, the power of acting.
Hognoses, like this one, aren't just gorgeous, but they are also drama queens.
North American Hognoses,
particularly the Eastern Hognose, are known to raise their head and flatten it when threatened.
This gives them a menacing look, similar to a cobra.
Because of this, people call them puff adders,
which is actually an unrelated venomous viper species from Africa.
They will hiss and strike, but not bite.
At worst, they'll headbutt their aggressor,
though this is more likely to give them a concussion than to hurt the predator.
It's like when you run out of PP in Pokemon and have to use Struggle.
And if that doesn't work, they go full ham.
They're experts of fanatosis, which you might have seen in a previous episode,
so they like to play dead, but before they do, they might just put on one heck of a show,
excreting all of their bodily fluids and squirming as though they're in the worst pain possible.
The plan is to make the predator think that the snake is sick or rotten, making it lose interest.
If that doesn't work,
they'll regurgitate their food in a last-ditch attempt to gross out their predators.
Unfortunately, for them, this doesn't always work,
as predatory birds like hawks and owls seem to not be bothered by it.
A meal's a meal.
So what should I talk about next?
Please let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes every week.
Thanks for watching, see ya!
I love that little upturn, upturned snout.
It's too much.
Oh, look at that tongue.
Hello.