Just curious Barry, what is caudal luring and what causes a snake to do this?
“Caudal” refers to the snake’s tail, and “luring” (derivative of “lure”) is like what someone does when they go fishing, using a lure on the end of a line to attract fish. Some snakes wiggle their tails to attract prey close enough for capture, and that’s caudal luring. In fact, numerous species of snakes are born with bright-colored tail tips (i.e. yellow tail tip on an otherwise brownish snake), so the snake can lie camouflaged in leaves, for instance, and the tip of the tail would be the only part of the predator that’s visible. However, even snakes that don’t possess a light colored tail tip are known to caudal lure. It’s an adaption that evolved to help increase the animal’s chance of getting food and therefore allowing it to survive long enough to reproduce and pass on its genetic code.
