What do a nineteenth-century war ship, a sardine-hunting shark, and a viral bottle trick have in common? Cavitation! (Image and video credit: Physics Girl)
Read the full article
The rhyme only works in a limited region of North America, though. Also, people remember it incorrectly ALL the time. There’s also a handful of snakes in the southwestern US that are harmless but also fit the rhyme’s description of venomous. Oh, and aberrant coralsnakes that can be missing bands, or entire colors, (like one found in Texas that was just black and yellow!), render the rhyme completely useless.
Just learn to ID the snake rather than relying on a nursery rhyme.
https://wsed.org/the-last-word-on-the-rhyme/amp/
Do you have any facts about snakes native to North America?
the coral snake is the only terrestrial elapid native to north america! elapidae is the family that cobras are in, and coral snake is no exception in this bunch as it’s absolutely venomous enough to kill you if left untreated.
and an unrelated snake that takes advantage of this fact is the milksnake! milksnakes are nonvenomous snakes from the rat snake family, but at some point they discovered that if they copied the coral snake’s homework hard enough, everyone assumed that messing with the milksnake would earn them a faceful of swift and terrible death, and so justly left the milksnake alone.
however this can cause some problems if you’re like me and grew up in an area where milksnakes and coral snakes are both native, and you get the regional Will This Snake Kill You nursery rhyme drilled into your head so hard you can still repeat it perfectly as an adult!
RED TOUCHES YELLOW, YOU’RE A DEAD FELLOW. RED TOUCHES BLACK, YOU’RE OKAY JACK.
The first five magical plant print rewards from my patreon. These are from my herbolgist reward tier, where each month patrons receive an A6 print of an illustrated plant and card with it’s mythological & magical history! These plants are real species from around the world that have intriguing past histories and folklore.