Feeding
This species is a constrictor, meaning it suffocates its prey, coiling around small animals and tightening its grip until they can no longer draw breath, before eating them. Though they do consume mice and rats, black rat snakes will also hunt other snakes, frogs, lizards, chipmunks, squirrels, juvenile rabbits, juvenile opossums, song birds, and bird eggs.
Read more about this topic: Pantherophis Obsoletus
Famous quotes containing the word feeding:
“It no longer makes sense to speak of “feeding problems” or “sleep problems” or “negative behavior” is if they were distinct categories, but to speak of “problems of development” and to search for the meaning of feeding and sleep disturbances or behavior disorders in the developmental phase which has produced them.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“We went on, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the soldier, binding up his wounds, harboring the stranger, visiting the sick, ministering to the prisoner, and burying the dead, until that blessed day at Appomattox Court House relieved the strain.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“When all who had money and leisure
Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
All hungrily pining for pines,
And making of beautiful speeches,
And marring of beautiful shows,
And feeding on delicate peaches,
And treading on delicate toes.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)