The Reddish Rat Snake (also known as the Philippine Rat Snake) is one of the friendly serpents that hunts for rats in the farms of Tanay. Of course it eats rats – that’s why it’s called a rat snake!

Rat snakes hunt by smell, using their tongue to pick up scents out of the air and off the ground. They can sense the trail that a rat has used and follow the trail back to the rat’s home. Or they will taste the air to smell a rat nest nest and then follow the scent to its dinner. They can also hunt by sight, moving through the underbrush and paying careful attention to small movements. No matter the method, the Reddish Rat Snake is very good at finding rodents.

The rat snake does not have deadly venom. Instead it kills its prey by wrapping its body around it and then squeezing the animal until its heart stops. It can only do this to very small animals, so there’s no reason to be afraid of them.