Behavior
Coral snakes vary widely in their behavior, but most are very elusive, fossorial snakes which spend the vast majority of their time buried beneath the ground or in the leaf litter of a rainforest floor, coming to the surface only when it rains or during breeding season. Some species, like Micrurus surinamensis, are almost entirely aquatic and spend most of their lives in slow-moving bodies of water that have dense vegetation.
Like all elapid snakes, coral snakes possess a pair of small fangs to deliver their venom (some coral snakes are rear fanged). These fangs, which are enlarged and hollow, in order to deliver their venom to their prey species feeding mostly on smaller snakes, lizards, frogs, and nestling birds and rodents, etc.. The venom takes time to take full effect.
Coral snakes have a tendency to hold on to a victim when biting, unlike vipers which have retractable fangs and tend to prefer to strike and let go immediately. Coral snakes are not aggressive or prone to biting and account for less than one percent of the number of snake bites each year in the United States.
Read more about this topic: Coral Snake
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
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—Leontine Young (20th century)
“No one thinks anything silly is suitable when they are an adolescent. Such an enormous share of their own behavior is silly that they lose all proper perspective on silliness, like a baker who is nauseated by the sight of his own eclairs. This provides another good argument for the emerging theory that the best use of cryogenics is to freeze all human beings when they are between the ages of twelve and nineteen.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
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—William Faulkner (1897–1962)