“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”: Can snakes really tell people apart by their sense of smell?

As the name suggests, in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, prequel to The Hunger Games, snakes They have a great role. This makes sense, and there are no spoilers up to this point, but if you don’t want to know what the role of these creeps is in the plot, then it would be better if you don’t continue reading and wait until you see the movie or read the book.

Moreover, snakes appear almost from the very beginning, when Lucy Gray, as soon as she was chosen as tribute to the 12th arrondissement, drops a small snake on the body of Mayfair, the mayor’s daughter, who, after stealing her boyfriend, added her name to the tribute list. They can also be seen on Lucy Gray’s dress. But actually the great role of snakes in the prequel The Hunger Games Rainbow snakes have it.

Like babblers, they are animals created in a doctor’s laboratory. Volumnia Gallia. They appear primarily in two scenes in which they are seen to only attack people whose scent they do not recognize. Considering that Dr. Gall created birds that reproduce human conversations as if they were recording devices, it should not surprise us that these snakes have genetic modifications. But if we stick to the nature of these snakes in real life, could something similar happen?

Performances in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

rainbow snakes appear twice in the prequel The Hunger Games. To begin with, Coriolanus Snow and his companion Clemencia Dovecote go to Dr. Gall’s laboratory to show off their proposed modifications for the Hunger Games.

They promised to do it together, but in the end Coriolanus did it alone. Dr. Gall has this suspicion, so when Clemens begins to give himself undeserved attention, she proposes to him. Remove the only existing copy of the snake tank. Warns that these snakes attack people. whose smell they don’t recognize but there shouldn’t be any problems, since the paper that he supposedly had in his hands had been in the tank for several hours. The girl tries, but is quickly attacked by snakes.

Second appearance of reptiles in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes This takes place during the Hunger Games. The plan was to release the snakes into the sand when there was little tribute left. Therefore, after what happened to Clemens, Coriolanus is placed in a tank handkerchief with which he wiped away Lucy Gray’s tears. Thus, this becomes the only tribute that they do not attack.

Fact or fiction in The Hunger Games?

The Hunger Games and its prequel are still fantasy novels, so it would make sense that there’s nothing real about the rainbow snakes. Indeed, there are very few of them, although about them smell.

Snakes have rather poor eyesight and hearing, but this is compensated by their sense of smell. This is very unusual because yes, they can smell through their nose, but most of what they smell they perceive through a structure called Jacobson organwhich is located in the vomer bone, between the nose and mouth.

This organ is also found in other animals, such as dogs. But in the case of snakes there is a big difference: They do not have access through the nose.. Therefore, to reach it, they have to do it through the mouth.

Inside the Jacobson’s organ there are neurons specialized in detecting and distinguishing chemical compounds such as pheromonesmolecules present in sebum and, in general, in many substances associated with human odor.

But it’s an organ difficult access from the mouth, so the forked tongue of snakes comes into play. They use it to capture molecules from the soil or volatile compounds in the air and deliver them to the inside of the mouth, where neurons do their work.

That’s why they constantly move their tongue, pulling it in and out of their mouths. Although they may not seem like it, they do smell.

Can they recognize people?

A keen sense of smell turns snakes into… magnificent hunters. But does it also serve to make friends how in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? Yes and no. Let’s get a look.

Yes, they can recognize people and animals. At least they can easily detect your smell: the pheromones they secrete, the oils on their skin, the soaps or perfumes they wear… This allows them to learn through conditioning, for example. But other than that, they don’t create any connection with people. Yes, it is known that they can form connections with other snakes. In fact, a study was published in 2020 showing that these are not the solitary animals we usually think of. They can form social bonds with other snakes with whom they bond in certain ways. But only among snakes.

No matter how long they have been in contact with a person’s scent, it will not stop them from attacking him. Perhaps if this person always feeds them, they will not attack him out of pure conditioning. They are hungry. But they won’t stop biting a man’s hand because he sniffed the piece of paper he was working with.

In short, as we have seen in other questions The Hunger GamesWhen it comes to snakes, it’s part science and part fantasy. But if it helps you learn a little more about these interesting reptiles, so much the better.