The Western hognose snake, a small snake species native to the deserts of the United States and Mexico, is famous for its unusual defense mechanism of farting instead of using venom.
While cobras and rattlesnakes possess deadly venom, constrictors like pythons have strong muscles, the Western hognose snake relies on a more peculiar defense mechanism: farting.
The farting sound made by these small snakes can travel up to 2 meters.
When threatened, it emits a loud gas sound from its cloaca—the typical exit for waste at the tail end of the snake. This phenomenon is known as cloacal popping or defensive popping.
This bizarre defense mechanism is designed to confuse predators long enough for the snakes to escape.
Bruce Young, an experimental morphologist at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, told Discover Magazine that the Western hognose snake produces its characteristic farts by using two sets of muscles to isolate a compressed air pocket and then contracting the cloacal sphincter to force it out powerfully.
The farting sound made by these small snakes can travel up to 6.5 feet (about 2 meters), lasts only about 0.2 seconds, and is often repeated.
Although not the loudest farts by human standards, they tend to produce a higher pitch for other animals, which can be quite perplexing.
Bruce Young conducted several experiments in the lab and found that some Western hognose snakes are so powerful that they can lift themselves off the ground.
Young stated: “Basically, it’s the snake’s version of flatulence, but the hognose has concentrated so much energy in this area that, in some cases, they will lift off the ground.”
Over the years, we have introduced various unique defense mechanisms in animal species, but this mechanism in the Western hognose snake is considered quite strange.
The Western hognose snake and the Arizona coral snake are the only known snake species that utilize this natural defense mechanism.
