A woman from Charlotte has stumbled upon a "ball of snakes" while walking along the Little Sugar Creek Greenway.
The woman, identified as Christine Proffitt based on her social media page, managed to snap a photo of the swirling serpents and shared it on twitter with a caption: "Watch out on the greenway today guys."
Speaking with CBS North Carolina, Christine said she sprinted away from the ball of snakes as soon as she finished taking photos.
"I would have taken more but I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could," she kidded. "As terrified as I was, my first instinct was ‘pics or it didn't happen.'"
Snake sightings are on the rise because the temperature is heating up. What Christine has captured seems like several snakes mating.
As explained by Live Science, mating season of snakes usually occur from April to June. There are many ways snakes mate, one of which includes forming a mating ball.
When male snakes sense the pheromones emitted by a female snake, they will track her down and swarm around her. They will then compete with each other in opening the cloaca of the female snake. In some cases, male snakes would try to suffocate the female snake so she would open her cloaca.
Reports cited that the snakes on the photo appear to include Brown Watersnakes and Northern Watersnakes. There are currently 37 species of snakes that are native to North Carolina, but only six of them are venomous.
As per Animal Diversity organization, Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon) are the most common snakes near water sources throughout northeastern North America. They are solitary most of the time, except during breeding season.
On the other hand, Brown Watersnakes (Nerodia taxispilota) are also fairly abundant in North America. It is most common in and around clear, quiet waters, on fallen trees, or even bushes suitable for basking.
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