Snake & Cat Form Unlikely Bond
You often see videos on social media of different types of animals that are friends or play together. Often, you’ll see dogs and cats that are friends. Occasionally, you’ll see vastly different animals that have a bond like a dog and a squirrel. But, Jackie Hanna has a couple animals at her house whose relationship is hard to believe it until you see it.
Jackie has a gray cat named Smoky that she got around 3 years ago. She was having issues with mice, and she wanted a cat to keep the mice away. An added benefit of Smoky would be that he’d keep snakes away as well. Last spring, Jackie noticed a speckled king snake in her flower bed, and she noticed that Smoky was not aggressive toward the snake. Jackie said, “I could tell Smoky knew the snake was there, but he acted like the snake didn’t bother him at all. I thought that was weird. I saw the snake 4-5 more times last year, and Smoky never attacked or bothered it. It was baffling. I thought cats were supposed to keep snakes away. Smoky wasn’t doing his job.”
A couple weeks ago Jackie figured out why Jackie didn’t bother the snake. Smoky and the snake are buddies. Hanna said, “I was watching Smoky out my kitchen window, and I saw that he had caught a frog. He was walking along the flower bed with it in his mouth, and he walked into the flower bed and dropped it. All of the sudden, the snake stuck his head out of a shrub and gobbled up the frog. I saw Smoky do the same thing again a few days later. I kid you not! I couldn’t believe it.”
The story gets even more crazy. Hanna said, “On Friday of last week, I walked out in the garage and Smoky was sitting by the snake. I just about fell out, but I managed to take a picture. He acted like he didn’t want me to get close to the snake; it was like he was protecting the snake. It gets even better. Smoky caught a small rat snake this Monday on the back porch. The snake was about a foot long. I saw him carry that snake to the king snake in the flower bed. I went outside, and I watched the king snake gobble up that poor rat snake. It was something else. I decided to name the king snake Speck. Ole Speck is going to get fat because of Smoky!”
I talked to herpetologist, Coral Rattler, about the relationship. He said, “I’ve never heard of a relationship like this. I’m really at a loss for words. I want to visit Jackie just to see it in person. It I had to hypothesize, I would say their relationship is the result of climate change.” Of course, just about everything these days is caused by climate change. Some economists are even saying that inflation is caused by climate change.
This is truly a unique relationship between Smoky and Speck. It will be interesting to see if they can stay friends as Speck continues to grow. The SRVO will be sure to do a follow up story next spring to give you an update on this unique relationship.