[WATCH] Southern brown egg eater snake caught on the Bluff
While these snakes are perfectly safe to handle, it could easily be confused with a female boomslang.
THE Southern Brown Egg Eater is completely harmless, in fact they don’t even have teeth. They average around 75cm in length, but can exceed one metre.
“The other day I received a call from a woman on the Bluff. She explained that in the past few days they had not been collecting as many eggs from their chickens as they should. She said one morning they found the culprit, an egg eater snake with its mouth full,” said Warren Dick.
“The husband managed to scoop the snake up into a crate before taking pictures and a short video for me to identify the snake. I made my way to the residence to safely relocate the unwanted egg thief.”
These snakes have a feel like not many other, their scales are very keeled making their skin feel like coarse sand paper. They are skilled egg finders and can consume a few eggs in one sitting.
The egg is swallowed whole where it is then cracked by a specialised boney protrusion in the throat, the inners of the egg are swallowed and the shell is regurgitated.
When threatened, they put on quite a display, rubbing their very keeled (having a distinct ridge down the center) scales together making a hissing sound, gaping the mouth widely and sticking viciously.
While these snakes are perfectly safe to handle, it could easily be confused with a female boomslang.
Contact Warren to have some of your interesting insects, snakes or spiders identified. Call or Whatsapp him on 072-211-0353. Follow the conversation on Facebook, Warren’s Small World.
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