Brady Barr - Scrapes With Snakes: True Stories of Adventures With Animals

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Trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1914-3
Reinforced library edition
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1916-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4263-2224-2

v3.1

Thats me, Brady Barr, with my friend Gerry Martin on the left. Together, we caught this giant Indian rock python.

When catching a snake this big, its always best to secure its head first. Thats the biting end!

I was waist-deep in water in a muddy swamp. I was trying not to think about the leeches that might be crawling up my legs. ThenI spotted it! Stretched out in front of me was the biggest snake I had ever seen. It looked as long as a bus!

What was I doing here? My name is Brady Barr. Im a zoologist (sounds like zoh-AH-luh-gist), a scientist who studies animals. Ive studied all kinds of animals all over the world. My favorites are reptilesreally big reptiles.

Ive worked with some real giants. Ive wrestled crocodiles over 18 feet (5.5 m) long. Ive captured 10-foot (3-m)-long lizards and turtles the size of small cars.

But until that day in the swamp, Id never come across a giant snake. Although theyre among the biggest reptiles on the planet, theyre very hard to find. And scientists know surprisingly little about them.

The swamp where I met the giant snake was in northern India. I was there with my friend Gerry Martin, a reptile expert. We had teamed up to study a rare and endangered crocodilian (sounds like krah-koh-DIL-ee-un). But our croc project soon took an unexpected turn.

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Some snakes can swallow things three times the size of their own head! How do they do it? Snakes have really flexible jaws. Human jaws are attached to the skull like a door on hinges. All we can do is open and shut them. A snakes lower jaw is not solidly attached at the chin, like ours is. Each side can move separately. A snakes jawbone is attached to the skull by stretchy bands of tissue, almost like rubber bands. Using its curved teeth to grip its prey, the snake can slowly stretch out its jaws and move its mouth around its meal.

When Gerry and I got to the small village near our research site, none of the people wanted to talk about crocs. All they wanted to talk about were snakes. They said they had a big problem. Their cows were disappearing. And they believed a giant snake was eating them.

Did You Know?

InThe Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling, the giant, 100-year-old snake named Kaa is an Indian rock python.

Holy cow! I thought. A cow-eating snake?

This was a story we just had to look into. A snake large enough to eat a cow would have to be a true giant. Wed heard stories like this before. But no scientists had ever been able to check them out. Maybe this was our chance to prove those stories were true.