Quite often, people who are not particularly familiar with the behavior of snakes, confused courtship ritual of the male to the female tournament with the marriage of the two males. In fact, if you see how the two snakes wrapped around each other and at the same time trying to raise his head higher than its holding partner, you know - you witness the duel of two cheschuychatyh "knights" for the attention of a beautiful lady.
In konchno eventual winner is the one who raised his head higher than his opponent. Takitm, the most tournament wins a large snake. But sometimes the victory gets more clever.
Intertwining the same around each other, Dragon pytayutsya not just give your opponent to take over a top. This is very clearly seen in the imaged scene photographer tournament two males island runner - one of the gentlemen squeezed his opponent so that he can not move his head an inch forward.
Such a complex ritual vyrobotalsya in the evolution of snakes because they often have a dangerous weapon - someone is poison, someone iron grip muscles. So if the males are fighting each other seriously, in this tournament, there would be no winners or losers, because the risk that competitors will kill each other, is very large. And in that case do ostaetsch female?
The peace is figuring out who is more worthy of the attention of a beautiful lady, resulting in minimal risk of getting dangerously injured. And the loser is also likely to continue some sort of - if not lucky in one tournament, he can win another.
If the odds are, then tournament may prodolzhatsyadostatochno long. It also happens that both partners are fully used up their strength, raspolzayutsya, and not knowing which of them is more worthy of attention of the female.
In Russia such marriage tournaments usually take place in mid-or late spring when the snakes come out of hibernation. But living on the island of Kunashir island runner they can start later - in the middle of June.
As the snakes away for the winter in large groups in the spring not far from the place where the hibernation, you can see dozens, if not hundreds of fights. It should be noted that the victory in the tournament does not mean successful breeding - still need to catch up with the winner of the female and performing a ritual, to "persuade" her to be his wife.