![\"snakeandmouse\"](\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/snakeandmouse.jpg\")
<\/a>Luckily, the ranger heard that the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas had successfully paired an orphaned pot-bellied pig with a mouse.\u00a0 Hoping for a similar outcome, the ranger moved Sammy to the University’s Student Farm\u00a0 and then found a mouse that lived behind the cafeteria, the one that the food workers had named Morty.<\/p>\nWhy a mouse?\u00a0 Mice might not seem like the most caring of animals, but years of research have demonstrated that their level of altrusim is just less than that of ninth-grade humans, a species well known for empathy.\u00a0 Mice remember other mice, they know left turns from right turns in mazes, and they twitch their whiskers in distinct, emotional rhythms when sizing up other species.\u00a0 So, mice bonding with other animals is not so unlikely, especially with snakes, who are bright and expressive and rely so heavily on their tongues.<\/p>\n
Still, the attempt to pair the two didn’t start out well.\u00a0 When they first met, Sammy chased Morty around the water dish, coiling and rising up to appear as threatening as possible.\u00a0 Morty fled — as mouse instincts demand — and burrowed in the mulch for hours, hoping that Sammy’s sensitive tongue would not detect him.<\/p>\n
After one-hundred-twenty-four days of wary gestures and tentative tongue-flicks, the pair finally accepted each other, and the effort proved to be worth its danger-filled beginning.<\/p>\n
“I still remember the day Morty gave the sniff of death<\/em> to a vole that Sammy was about to consume,” said Dr. Peter Martin of the University’s Deep Well Biology Lab and known to his colleagues as “Uncle Petrie.”\u00a0 As Dr. Martin would later testify, “We knew they were truly goombahs<\/em> when they started to sleep cuddled up together.\u00a0 I must admit, we were concerned that Sammy would coil up and crush Morty by mistake!”<\/p>\n Once the bond was made, snake and mouse were inseparable.\u00a0 Being noctural, they would nap together in the day and move about at night, hunting for food.\u00a0 Morty would rest his bristly tail on Sammy’s scaly back as they explored the enclosure and searched for snacks.\u00a0 The staff expected Sammy to imitate the food-gathering habits of the more-experienced Morty, but instead the mouse became the copycat, even attempting to snare a cricket (not typically part of a mouse’s diet).<\/p>\n The well-meaning University Student Farm had always planned to reintroduce Sammy to\u00a0 his family in the park where he was born.\u00a0 But as he was being readied for release, Sammy became ill from a twisted intestine, and Morty disappeared.\u00a0 Veterinarians were unable to save Sammy and could not locate Morty.\u00a0 Sammy was just fifteen months into what might have been a fifteen-year lifespan.<\/p>\n The staff of the University of Kansas Student Farm were heartbroken, of course, but they all share the hope that Morty has survived to make other warm interspecies friendships.\u00a0 But so far, other than some moldy tomatoes, there has been no sign of life around the dumpster behind the cafeteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At just four months of age, Sammy the Snake suffered a terrible loss: his mother was run over by a motorcycle as she tried to cross the road in sunny Milford State Park in Kansas where they lived.\u00a0 It being … Continue reading