According to a report by People's Daily Online on August 27, in the Changning Lancangjiang County Nature Reserve in Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, a fixed infrared camera accidentally "captured" a scene of a wild king cobra moving in a completely natural state.
From the picture, we can see that a large snake passed through a fallen dead tree in front of the camera, but the single picture shows that the giant snake's "head and tail are in different frames", and only the "middle section" is fully displayed.
After on-site measurement by the staff of the reserve, the dead tree that the giant snake passed through was 190 cm (cm) long. According to the "proportion" of each section of the snake's body, it was calculated by experts that the body length of the snake was at least 300 cm, that is, more than 3 meters.
It is understood that the place where the giant king cobra appeared this time is located in the Paradise area of the Changning Lancangjiang County Nature Reserve. This is a primeval forest with an altitude of more than 2,400 meters in the northeast of Changning County. The trees are tall and there are many fallen leaves on the surface. In addition, the fallen dead tree may be covered with moss on the surface because it is in a place with weak light.
Snakes, including the king cobra, are cold-blooded animals. They usually only appear when the temperature is generally high from late spring to mid-autumn. They are generally in hibernation during the rest of the time (some individuals occasionally appear when the temperature is high in winter). Since snakes are cold-blooded animals, that is, their body temperature changes with the ambient temperature, it stands to reason that such animals that change with the temperature should not directly trigger the camera function to start for infrared cameras. But why can infrared cameras still capture images of snake activities?
According to the explanation of experts, the time of the video shot by the infrared camera was 12:14 noon, and the sunlight in the forest was relatively bright, which means that it was the time of the day when the temperature was relatively high. Therefore, it is speculated that the temperature rise triggered the infrared camera's shooting function to start. In addition, there is another possibility that when the snake passed by, there were other warm-blooded small animals around, which triggered its camera function to start.
This time, the king cobra with a body length of more than 3 meters was directly "photographed" in Changning County, which once again shows that the ecological environment here is getting better, which is very suitable for the survival of snakes and other animals and plants in their food chain.
More and more nature reserves have deployed infrared monitoring cameras to capture various animals. Monitoring cameras are essential instruments for various units to monitor biodiversity.
