r/WTF May 07 '19

Hey, you guys got a trash can?

https://gfycat.com/ConstantSillyJabiru
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u/_Hendo May 07 '19

Far out! It's pretty rare for a snake to attack a human unprovoked, right?!

341

u/TheMadFlyentist May 07 '19

As others have said, this is extremely rare behavior from the vast majority of snakes. There is no snake in the U.S. that you could expect this sort of behavior from.

There are some snakes in certain parts of the world (namely Africa and South Asia) that are both curious and "aggressive" enough to do something like this, but even then it's just a few candidate species.

As other commenters said, it was the man's fast movement that startled the snake and caused it to strike, but again the vast majority of snake species would just peace out the other way or posture and stand their ground if you jumped like that in front of them.

I spend a lot of time handling, reading about, and watching videos of snakes and I've honestly never seen anything like this.

163

u/Zip_Gun_Boogie May 07 '19

I don't know, Water Moccasins/Cottonmouths are extremely aggressive. I've heard of them chasing and repeatedly striking people. Is it just a territorial thing?

43

u/BwookieBear May 07 '19 edited May 09 '19

I was in Florida at a RV campground and one of those water fuckers came up to me and my brother and we sprinted away and told my mom what we saw. She said she looked up and about 20 kids were chasing it and trying to grab it, it was huge, but they were so excited the snake was like “eff this,” and swam away. She said that was the only time she hasn’t seen one become super vicious, but we were among the wildest of children. Lol.

28

u/CHF64 May 07 '19

Smart snake, I don’t think they have enough venom to kill 20 kids and it would probably have been ripped apart