The fearful snake, why the cat is not afraid?

When it comes to snakes, many people are scared and have goose bumps, in fact, the fear of snakes is engraved in the genes of humans, from the "genetic memory" of early humans.

Early human life in the wild, if encountered lions, tigers and other large beasts, through the collective strength, but still have a chance to overcome, or in time to find and avoid the danger. Snakes are always on the prowl, usually hidden in the grass, trees, rocks, and launch sudden attacks on humans. It is difficult for humans to detect, avoid and prevent such dangers, and they often encounter snakes and suffer from their attacks. Over time, humans' fear of snakes is ingrained in their brains, and they tell their offspring that snakes are dangerous. The fear of snakes is also the result of natural selection, people who are not afraid of snakes are gradually "sent away" by snakes, and people who are afraid of snakes, will be more alert to the appearance of snakes, snakes, will feel nervous and anxious, and can immediately escape, it is easier to survive, so the gene of fear of snakes is inherited, which is why many people have an innate fear of snakes.

The snake, a creature that scares humans to the bone, is not put in the eyes of the soft and cuddly cat. We can often see images and videos from the internet, of cats bullying and teasing snakes. For non-venomous snakes of small size, most of the cat-snake battles end with the snake's defeat. Why is this the case?

Cats are feline carnivores and can be described as smaller versions of small tigers. Felines are very good hunting masters, superb in combat, explosive, strong muscles attached to the skeleton, ultra-high agility, dodging, bouncing ability, they are among the lions, tigers, leopards, in their respective habitats, are fierce killing masters, top predators.

Snakes can't beat cats?

Cats and kittens may look cute, but in terms of combat, they have more advantages than snakes.

1. Responsive and fast action

The world's martial arts! Only fast! Although the snake's attack speed, seems to have been very fast, but the cat's vision and hearing are more powerful than the snake, sensitive, and the skeleton with a strong muscle group, so that the cat's reaction sensitivity and movement speed are many times faster than the snake. The reaction speed of cats is seven times faster than that of snakes and five times faster than that of humans. In other words, in the eyes of the cat, the snake's rapid bite is slowed down several times the slow motion! Just like we watch sloth lightning. So, in the face of the snake's fierce attack, the cat can easily and nimbly dodge, even if it is a poisonous snake, its teeth do not necessarily have a chance to bite the cat.

2. Flexibility PK

The snake's flexibility is relatively low, the attack route is simple, and can only attack in a straight line in the direction of the snake's head, limited by the special nature of its body, and will not turn at will, and to change the direction of attack, you have to turn the snake's head. The cat wants to avoid the snake's attack simply by changing its direction.

But the cat is different, its body is soft and flexible, and its sharp claws can attack the snake from all directions. Flexible cats in the air to move to avoid the snake's attack at the same time, but also with claws to whip the snake a big mouth, shoot the snake's small brain.

3. Death wraps? It doesn't work!

We all know that the snake's big trick is to wrap around its prey, so that the opponent suffocated and then swallowed. But this trick for the cat, but it does not work.

This is because the cat's whole body is very flexible, stretching very well, can make their own body can be short and long, thick and thin, round and flat. Large enough to wear to drill doorways, small enough to drill a mouse hole.

Cat If the cat is entangled in the body of the snake, and the snake is not huge enough, the cat will violently stretch their body to hold up, and their body to the ground hard, rolling around, so that the bones of the snake will be broken or broken (snakes are cartilage all over the body, the fall is extremely easy to fracture to break). After the fracture, the snake loses its ability to fight back. The cat can also "shrink the bones" to jump out of the snake's winding circle, or use sharp teeth to bite hard to get out of danger.

4. Disadvantages of snakes

Snakes also have a poor sense of hearing and vision.

Snakes have a simple auditory organ structure, with no obvious external ear or tympanic membrane structure and only a slender auditory bone, the ossicles, which cannot hear airborne sounds, so they have poor sound discrimination.

Most snakes have poor vision. Snakes' eyes can only locate other creatures based on heat sources, the equivalent of infrared night vision, and they can see shapes but not details, blurred images, and are insensitive to stationary objects.

And cats are more advantageous in these two aspects.

Cats have well-developed nerves and muscles in their ears, and their sense of hearing is so acute that they can hear very small sounds in the distance that humans and canines cannot hear. Cats also have strong night vision, and can clearly identify things in the dark at night, and their dynamic vision is extremely sensitive, for fast moving or slightly changing objects, cats can see. Because the cat's ability to perceive the surrounding perception is stronger than snakes N times, so there is an extremely sensitive response.

Because snakes have weak hearing and vision, they are more adept at hiding in the shadows, making sneak attacks, striking in the dark, and overpowering their enemies with one bite. But in the face of a frontal attack, the snake is at a disadvantage. Under the cat's attack, the snake will not only be too late to react, but will also be dumbfounded by the cat's claws, and the snake is a cold-blooded animal with very limited endurance, unable to maintain a long period of high-intensity movement and combat power to sustain the attack. Under the cat's repeated teasing and toying, the snake's physical energy will soon be depleted and unable to resist, and finally defeated. The cat's claw is so strong that it can break the bones of the snake. Most of the snake's organs are located in the former, in the cat-snake war, the snake mostly died because of damage to the organs.

Of course, the cat has a better chance of winning against a non-venomous snake that is much smaller than itself. And if cats encounter snakes that are much stronger than they are, they generally don't bother to actively mess with each other, but slink away. The cat's strength simply can not do the python, the cat was swallowed by the python photos on the Internet is not uncommon. In addition to large pythons, some highly venomous snakes are also a threat to cats. Cats do not have antivenom in their bodies and are not immune to snake venom, although flexible cats are good at dodging, but there is no guarantee of infallibility, as long as they miss once or are sneaked up on, being bitten by poisonous teeth will also lose their lives.

Cats, cute and wild coexist, although the appearance of petite and cute, but also excellent hunting masters. Through the above analysis, it can be found that the cat in physical strength, attack persistence, speed, flexibility and other aspects, compared to the general snake has a great advantage, so in the cat-snake battle, the cat cat often prevail. Snake catching, cats are professionals!