Skiing is the Tits

Hook Nosed Sea Snake

Enhydrina schistosa, commonly known as the beaked sea snake, hook-nosed sea snake, common sea snake, or the Valakadyn sea snake, is a highly venomous species of sea snake common throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific. These snakes are generally found in the coast and coastal islands of India. They are amongst the most common of the 20 kinds of sea snakes found in that region. Their principal food is fish.

Hello!

Snakes don’t feel affection in the same way a mammal does. Most of the species we keep in captivity are solitary in nature and do not form bonds or relationships. A few snakes, though, do live communally and have been observed creating what scientists strongly suspect to be emotional bonds, and we could even go so far as to view this as a reptilian version of friendship and/or familial attachment.

Snakes are very capable of identifying their keepers. I have kept snakes who prefer to be handled by familiar humans rather than strangers, and it’s comforting to think that they see me as a protector, a provider, a “safe” human.

When my big mama corn snake, Hatshepsut, escapes from her enclosure I always find her waiting in areas that I frequent, places where I usually sit, parts of the house that smell like me. She’s looking for me, most likely, because I’m the one she knows will bring the food. She’ll hang out with me while I watch television and feel safe enough to doze off, basking on my warm mammal body as she would a warm patch of earth. She’ll let me touch her face and pat her smooth scaly head without shying away or showing disturbance. 

I’m not sure that any of this falls under the heading of affection, but it is easily observed as trust. Trust is the small dense core of affection, upon which love can grow. Trust is the first emotion that we learn as tiny babies and trust is the basis upon which all other bonding emotions are built.

The fact that we, the dominant species on the planet, can learn to earn the trust of an animal that generally avoids interaction with others of their own kind outside of breeding is pretty stinking remarkable and special. 

There’s actually a couple of reasons we think cuttlefish evolved such unusual shaped pupils.

First, the W-shape helps them to balance out the uneven light levels in their habitat. Cuttlefish live in shallow areas, so there’s quite a lot of light at the top of their vision, but it becomes dimmer pretty quickly further down, so they need to deal with a fairly wide range of light intensities at the same time. 

It’s a little difficult to explain, but basically the combination of horizontal and vertical oriented slits in the pupil result in an overall more even level of illumination across the retina, reducing the contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene. This paper goes more into detail if you want to read it.

It is also thought that the W-shaped pupil might allow them to distinguish colour, despite being “colourblind” by our standards (they only possess one type of cone cell, whereas we have three). 

Wide pupils let light in from many directions, but this scattering effect means their vision is subject to more chromatic aberration - the colourful “fringes” you get around objects when your vision is blurry, and also in photographs when you use a wider aperture. However, some scientists have theorised that they may be able to use what is usually considered a visual flaw as a way to discern colour in a completely different manner to any known animal.