Really neat interaction showing off their role as secondary pollinators. Altogether I saw two rattlesnakes and a bullsnake in the span of an hour. This was at the edge of a large black-tailed prairie dog colony in the foothills of the Rockies. I missed the strike by a couple minutes but you can see how big the fangs are in this photo. Both are fairly large adults.
I figured they'd be going absolutely monkey alerting each other to the snake. Their behaviour was totally normal even within 3m of it. This one's view was obstructed by plants along the trail but surely there was some kind of struggle or something which included a noise.
Maybe the other prairie dog was their colony's (is that what their burrow hole things are called?) version of Thatcher?
"We know, don't care, Ralph was a fucker rip bozo"
They probably understand that once the snake's got somebody the threat is over
The leftist answer to the neoliberal crab bucket story. Prairie dogs will sit cozy knowing one of their own is being devoured because they're safe in the moment. The danger has passed. But what about when it's your turn to be devoured? The snake is vulnerable when occupied, my friends! When its mouth is full that's the time to strike as one!
Ah, thinking like an Englishman who must protect his sheep from the wolves and so drives them to extinction. What the prairie dogs understand is that they are part of an interdependent system of living beings. If they kill this snake while it's vulnerable, a few more of their number might survive. they could kill many snakes this way. But what might the effects be when their predator is gone? Their population would boom, and they'd need to develop agriculture to keep their many children and elderly from starving to death.
If you want to introduce class society to prairie dogs, that's on you.
The story isn't for the prairie dogs... Are... are people out there telling the crab bucket story to crabs?
I am