Wisconsin School of the Air; Afield with Ranger Mac; 27

The Wisconsin School of the air invites you to go afield with the ranger Mac. Today boys and girls he's going to tell us about snakes. Not the take you on another rodeo hike down the nature trail. Here's your guide Ranger Mack. Hello boys and girls. This is a beautiful spring day. Let's be up I'm the way. Everything in nature is so closely related so interdependent. And look up that word want to interdependent. Everything is so dependent on other things in nature that it is difficult to state. And what is most important and most people have an idea how the snake has no place on this earth. And they wonder why Noah when he saw the pair entered the ark didn't kill them on the spot. Snakes are repulsive to most people. And when they see a snake they either run away screaming or grab a club with which to kill their reptile. Either action would be foolish.

A demonstration of ignorance. Ranger Mack Ranger Mack never had any inclination to fondle snakes. But he enjoys watching them. He likes to watch them glide like quicksilver out of harm's way. Snakes are alive primroses are poisonous to some people but one does not have to pluck primroses in order to enjoy them. Snakes far from being dangerous monsters are really among man's best friends. They destroy countless rats mice rodents of all kinds snails slugs insects and other pests. They are among the most helpful and interesting elements of all our wildlife. Of course it is the venomous snakes the poisonous snakes that give the tribe a bad name. Most of the snakes dangerous to ma'am are confined to the tropics in

Wisconsin. There is the rattler which is confined to the rocky areas of our state largely in the high cliffs bordering the Mississippi. I have never seen a copperhead. I live in Wisconsin. Some people report seeing and killing them in Wisconsin. But many harmless snakes have red and brown coloration and could be easily confused with the Copperhead. The chances of being killed by lightning are greater than being poisoned by a snake. If you have not learned to enjoy the dancing of lightning in the theater of the sky while the thunder applauds the act you have missed out on the enjoyment of a great demonstration of nature. Now let's discuss the statements as given in the teacher's manual. A snake is a cold blooded creature. A snake like

other reptiles the lizards and turtles are cold to our touch. And this is because the body temperature of reptiles is the same as that of its surroundings. A snake does not have the mechanism within its body to maintain a constant temperature as we do our normal temperature is ninety eight and six tenths degrees. If it varies one way or the other even in the slightest. We do not hear well because snakes are cool to the touch. People think they are slimy. Such people don't know what they are talking about. The body of a snake is close to where the scaly skin that is always dry as dry can be and feels like soft leather. A snake is the only creature that can swallow a victim that is larger than its own

head. The lower jaw has a hinge on the upper jar that that allows for expansion. Up and down into the gullet and the lower jaw is split as so that it can extend sidewise and saw the jar can expand up and down and sidewise. The snake has teeth but not truing teeth. In order to parse the victim into the gullet the teeth are shaped like curved needles all pointing inward. By moving pursed the lower jaw then the upper jaw the food is parse down the gullet. Once the action is well underway it must be continued for the teeth will not allow the victim to be thrown back out of the mouth. So all the prey is swallowed whole and the acids in the stomach do the work of the teeth.

It may take hours and many hours for a snake to swallow completely. A frog. Different snakes have different methods of overpowering their victims. The Garter Snake simply seizes its victim and swallows it as the victim tries to escape. Our common milk snake throws a coral around a groper or a rat and strangles it. The poisonous snakes on the other hand and inject the poison which kills the victim in a few minutes. That's what the poison is intended for by nature swallowing a poison victim does not harm the snake at all. In fact the poison is supposed to help in the digestion of the prey. What the snakes eat. They eat only animal food. They are carnivorous

carnivorous CAIR and I ve or R ALL U S. But the victim must be alive. Our common garter snake eats insects of all kinds devouring beetles in numbers beyond our calculation. A good sized garter snake will take mammals up to the size of a Meadow Mouse. The milk snake is a great writer and mouths there and is protected by law in some of the Southern states. It would be a great help to us if we had more milk snakes in the Gulf or in crested areas of our state. But a snake is a snake to most people and will not be allowed to perform that part in the world of nature for which it came into existence. Happily our friendly garter snake has the largest families of any American snake.

And Nature may have intended this snake to be in our gardens and lawns and so provided it in large numbers. As many as 50 are born to one snake. There are born alive in the fall of the air. Each snake when barn is surrounded by a half transparent membrane which the snake breaks open. A few minutes after birth garter water green grass snakes and the Copperheads and rattlers are born alive in this manner. After birth the young shift for themselves. The mother is not in the least concerned about her offspring. There is a tale that the mothers make a swallow as her young in times of danger in order to protect them. There is no pouch in the throat of a snake to hold the young. And if the young slipped into the stomach the strong acid fluid of

the stomach would digest them at the table got started and still persists because people kill mother snakes about the time they are ready to give birth to their young and the living snakes are found inside the mother's body. And so the people conclude that the young were swallowed. Snakes of most kinds are hatched from Ames. These eggs are buried in the earth and in rotting trunks tree trunks under manure piles and in other places where the eggs are protected and exposed to warm much of the warmth comes from the decomposition of vegetable matter. The eggs are tough. Most of them a little leathery and pure white because the eggs are hidden. There is no need for color is a coloration part come your flock protection. The young of snakes have a hard

time to survive because of numerous enemies. Crows ducks Hawks herons Bitterns owls bullfrogs snakes snakes of some kinds. Fish cats conks rats foxes and even chickens. Take a heavy toll. Besides grass and forest fires cause the death of countless numbers. With all these enemies it is a miracle that any survive to continue the race. It is difficult to understand and how a legless creature can move so rapidly. Some time examined the anatomy of a garter snake and you will find that snakes have broad plates extending across their bellies and each plate overlaps its neighbor all the way to the rear. These plates are controlled by muscles attached to the ribs inside the body.

The plates catch hold on the earth and push the snake powered in a sort of Caterpillar action. Put a snake on a piece of glass and it has a hard time because the plates cannot take a hold. Allow the snake to travel in sand or dust and you will noticed at the rear of each loop a tiny pile of dust each tiny pile is the place where the creature got a hold on the earth. There is no creature that has all the grace sense movements of movement of the snake. By now you have you know that the snake is wonderfully created but its tongue is even more startling than any other feature. The ears are buried within the head and the snake must be deaf to sound waves that travel by air though it does hear and

fear of vibrations in the earth. The vision is imperfect. Most of the time because of skin that covers the eyes so the forked tongue must do the work of sight and hearing. This tongue is O is on the alert. It tastes the air and in that way finds out about its surroundings and what is going on in the world about it. Outside the bat there is no creature more wonderfully equipped than the snake. We cannot believe that nature would go to such an extreme without having an important place for this creature. Don't you think that Ranger Mark is right when he says that there is no more excuse for killing a harmless snake than for killing a song bird

goodbye until next week and may the Great Spirit put sunshine in your heart today and for evermore heap much of the familiar Indian farewell brings us to the end of another trip afield with Ranger Mack. He'll be back again next week at the same time to be your guide for another rodeo trip down the nature trail when we learn about modern Paul Bunyan's. This is the Wisconsin School of the air.