We have heard of some unusual pregnancy cravings, but none compare to the tiger keelback snake’s pre-natal diet. A recent report in Science News says that the poisonous snake, who live in various parts of Asia, hunts poisonous toads when pregnant. The news comes from a study recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers tracked the snakes as they sought the hard-to-find toads for sustenance. This dietary shift in pregnant female tiger keelbacks, also known as Rhabdophis tigrinus, may serve a purpose. In the abstract for the paper, the authors note that the toxins derived from the toads “may enhance chemical defence in offspring.”
By Yasunori Koide (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
