rat snakes mating

[Prasanth Sreenivasan]

it was shoot at sight. didn't get a second chance.
Canon SX20IS f 5.0, 1/200, ISO 200 little cropped on the left of the image.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice image.Observation of snakes is a fascinating arena.Hope you have equipped yourself reading some good books on Indian snakes so that you could identify venomous snakes from a distance and are conversant about their behaviour.

The vertical twining is usually a ritual combat between male rat snakes.As far as I know they may mate on trees or on land.They lie down for sometime on such occasion.

I am so happy to learn about your interest.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[Prasanth Sreenivasan]

thanks sakthi sir,
snakes have always been my interest. never like to miss tv shows involving snakes :001_smile:

prasanth:

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Quite fascinating to see rat snakes mate in water. Have never seen such behaviour. Where did you click this? Thanks for sharing.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice to see two male rat snakes in water. It might be quite a sighting. I remember sighting similar behavior but that was on land. You can see the image here -
http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1238&highlight=snakes

How long was the sighting? Thanks for sharing.

[Prasanth Sreenivasan]

thanks,

Murugan Anantharaman it was on my own backyard pond :)

Mrudul i could sight for only a few minutes & soon they broke off. may be they were fighting for some time before i got there. immediately after i shot this pic they broke off and one of them went on to catch a frog :laugh:

prasanth