In the dark desert near Yuma, Arizona, a clash is about to happen. A rat-kangaroo scours the sand in search of a snack. Three centimeters away, a horned rattlesnake, poisonous and hungry, patiently waits for its prey to come a little closer.
But the duel ends faster than you would have thought. The serpent lashes out, the rat jumps into the air and kicks the snake in the head slaming on the ground. A performance that would make Daniel Larusso proud. The snake, however, misses the meal it had hoped for.
Quick encounters like this happen every night in the desert, and go largely unnoticed by ordinary people. But recently, a team of researchers decided to find out more about this world by recording snake attacks on kangaroo rats using high-speed capture cameras.
The resulting footage revealed that horned rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerastes) and kangaroo rats (Dipodomys) are surprisingly well-matched as predator and prey. They also made it possible to demonstrate, thanks to the slow-motion, that kangaroo rats are real little furry ninjas because they can perform impressive acrobatics.
“Rattlesnakes and kangaroo rats are outstanding athletes, their peak performance being achieved during these interactions, ” said Timothy Higham, associate professor at the University of California at Riverside and author of two new studies related to these interactions, observations. “This makes the [high-speed camera] system a great way to disentangle the factors that might tip the scales in this ‘arms race’ .”
While the rattlesnakes were incredibly fast, able to go in less than 100 milliseconds (less than a blink of an eye) from absolute calm to “attack mode” to reach their prey, the rats were even faster. The team found that kangaroo rats could respond to snake attacks in under 38 milliseconds, sometimes dodging a bite in just 70 milliseconds.
What’s more, during those 70 milliseconds, some kangaroo rats were able to perform complex movements in the air, which almost made snakes look foolish.
In one of the attacks, a rat kicked a snake just below the head, causing the predator to fly several meters away.
Another rat quickly changed direction in the air, twisting its long tail like a propeller to turn away from the snake. Other kangaroo rats jumped seven to eight times their size, sheltering themselves from harm.
Kangaroo rats not only use their paws to defend themselves against predators, but also against their fellows. They sometimes combat in the air when it comes to fighting over a meal or a piece of territory.
