Dice snakes can fake their own death when being attacked by predators, putting on a theatrical display that includes smearing themselves with their own poop and letting blood ooze from their mouths. To test this, the researchers traveled to Golem Grad, an island in a lake in North Macedonia, where the snakes are common. They observed that some snakes played dead by leaving their mouth wide open, some smeared themselves with poop and others oozed blood from their mouth, too. Overall, the snakes spent between about six and 24 seconds playing dead. While the snakes don’t squirt blood directly at their predators, like horned lizards do, bleeding from the mouth signals their apparent death to the predator.

---

Persons: Jozef Kaut, ” Vukašin, ”, Bjelica Organizations: CNN, University of Belgrade, Golem Locations: North Macedonia, Serbia