SCIENCE SAYS SNAKES CAN HEAR!

Have you heard that snakes are deaf and sense the world around them via vibrations through the ground? Well, a recent study has debunked this popular belief by demonstrating that snakes do, in fact, respond to noises!

Researchers from the University of Queensland’s Venom Evolution Lab conducted 304 controlled experiment trials on 19 snakes across five genera in a soundproof room to observe the effect of sounds on individual snake behaviour. The sounds tested either did, or did not produce ground-based vibrations The snakes were monitored for displaying the following snake behaviours in response to the noise: body movement, body freezing, head-flicks, tongue-flicks, hissing, "periscoping", head fixation and lower jaw drop.

All of the snake responses were strongly genus-dependent, with three genera (Death Adders, Taipans and Brown Snakes) more likely to move away from sound, signalling potential avoidance behaviour. One genus (non-venomous Woma Pythons), significantly increased their probability of movement and approached the sound, suggesting curiosity! The variation in responses is thought to be from differences in hunting and predator avoidance behaviours between species