How long would it take to eat 20,000 venomous snakes if two wild boars are released on Dalian Snake Island?

Rumors on the internet claim that wild boars can treat venomous snakes like spicy strips, and when they eat them, they’re just as fast as honey badgers—so is this really true, or just a rumor? If it is true, what would happen if we put two wild boars onto Dalian Snake Island, where there are 20,000 venomous snakes? Today, we’ll talk about these interesting questions.

Let’s start with the answer: Wild boars are not the venomous snakes’ “natural enemy.”

What is a natural enemy? A natural enemy refers to an animal that mainly harms or feeds on another animal. For example, cats eat mice, so mice are the cats’ natural enemy and prey. And in a wild boar’s diet, plant-based foods account for as much as 90% or more; less than 10% is meat, which includes insects, carrion, bird eggs, rodents, reptiles, and so on.

That means, to wild boars, venomous snakes are at most just “snacks,” not “staple food.”

So why aren’t wild boars afraid of venomous snakes?

The answer is: wild boars aren’t “unafraid” in the sense of being fearless—they’re “unable to be poisoned.”

Wild boars’ bodies can be said to have maximum defenses in nature, and it’s not just one layer of protection, but three layers. Even wolves would find it hard to break through these defenses, let alone venomous snakes.

First layer of protection: mud. Wild boars like to roll in mud, coating themselves with a thick layer of dry mud. This is a kind of behavior evolved by wild boars to prevent insect bites, but this “defense force” is also effective against venomous snakes: when a venomous snake bites, it bites the mud—not the flesh.

Second layer of protection: steel-needle bristles. Wild boar fur is coarse and hard. The outer layer is bristles like steel needles, while the inner layer is finer fur. It’s already very difficult for snake fangs to pierce through this “iron bramble.”

Third layer of protection: thick skin and fat. Wild boars’ skin is as thick as 0.9–2 centimeters, which is two to three times thicker than human skin, and beneath it there’s another thick layer of fat. The venom fangs of most venomous snakes are only 1–2 centimeters long. Even if by luck they manage to get through the bristles and mud, they still might not be able to drive through this “pig armor.”

So, most of the time, when a wild boar gets bitten by a venomous snake, it’s pretty much similar to being bitten by a mosquito.

What if a venomous snake bite actually gets in?

The length of venomous snake fangs is generally between 1–2 centimeters. With that length combined with the snake’s fairly limited bite force, it’s a bit of a fantasy for the snake to bite through a wild boar’s skin. But nothing is absolute. What if the venomous snake is a Gaboon viper—the one with the longest fangs in this venomous snake world (up to 3 centimeters)—and it bites the wild boar? Then the wild boar may not necessarily be in trouble, because it has a backup plan—antitoxin-resistant constitution.

Some data shows that wild boars can secrete antibodies in their bodies to fight snake venom, greatly reducing the lethality of venom proteins. Also, a large portion of antivenom serum is extracted from livestock such as pigs, cattle, and horses—meaning pigs themselves already have some ability to resist snake venom.

Of course, this doesn’t mean wild boars are 100% immune to snake venom. If a super-large venomous snake happens to bite the nose, eyes, or other weak areas, the wild boar could still be poisoned. It’s just that the chance of such a situation is too low.

So, wild boars are not “natural enemies,” but they do indeed bully most venomous snakes. Relying on its “three-layer armor” plus an antitoxin-resistant constitution, it neutralizes the venomous snake’s deadliest weapon. Next, let’s look at the place in the world with the highest density of venomous snakes—Dalian Snake Island.

After talking about wild boars, let’s now look at their opponent—the viper on Dalian Snake Island.

Dalian Snake Island is at the southern end of the Liaodong Peninsula. It is about 10 kilometers from the mainland and covers only 73 hectares (about 0.73 square kilometers). In such a small area, there are nearly 20,000 viper snakes on the island—and they’re all this same type of snake. Step a few times and you might step on one. Just imagining it makes your scalp tingle.

So what do all these snakes eat?—Waiting by the roadside for prey: they eat migratory birds and mice.

The feeding season of the snake viper is very short. There are only two meals a year: spring (from late April to early June) and autumn (from late August to mid-October), which perfectly coincide with the peak period of migratory bird travel. Birds, worn out from long flights, want to rest on Snake Island—only to land and become the snakes’ dinner. Besides birds, the mice that follow people onto the island are also among its prey.

What do the snake vipers do during the non-feeding season?

The answer is simple: sleep. When summer temperatures exceed 32℃, snake vipers burrow under rocks or into grass and go into summer dormancy. By mid-November, when temperatures drop to more than ten degrees below zero, they burrow into underground rock crevices about 1 meter deep and hibernate. Over the course of a year, the total time when snake vipers are truly “awake” and preying adds up to less than 4 months. The rest of the time, they’re all asleep. With these abilities, starting from more than 10,000 years ago, snake vipers have appeared on the island and survived to today. They’ve even developed a force of 20,000 venomous snakes.

Alright, now let’s air-drop a male wild boar and a female wild boar onto the island—what would happen? (We won’t consider the cases of two male pigs or two female pigs, because it’s only one generation.) The outcome would likely be that the wild boars disappear.

At first, once the wild boars have just landed on the island, they’ll be so excited they keep making snorting sounds. There aren’t many plants on the island, but there are still some roots, tree bark, and tender leaves to chew on. Occasionally, they come across a few snake vipers; they can pin one down with a kick, snap, snap—then eat it like “spicy strips,” enjoying it immensely.

But don’t forget how much wild boars eat. One adult wild boar needs to consume 3–5 kilograms of food per day—maybe even more. In a 0.73-square-kilometer island, those plants can’t last for long. Once the wild boars have chewed through all the green plants they can eat, the situation begins to change.

When the wild boars finish the plants and there’s nothing left to eat, they can only shift their target to the snake vipers. But the problem is—snake vipers aren’t stupid. They will hide. Moreover, starting in late June every year, snake vipers enter summer dormancy. They crawl into rocky crevices and stay motionless. No matter how sharp their nose is, the wild boars can’t pry open rocks underground. For a full two months, the wild boars can’t even see the shadow of a snake.

Hardly waiting until late August, when the snake vipers wake up, the wild boars are ready to feast. However, the feeding season is only a short two months. Before the wild boars can eat enough, by mid-October the snake vipers hibernate again. This time, they sleep for four or five months, straight until April of the next year.

A wild boar that goes more than half a year without a stable food source won’t just be unable to eat snakes—it might starve to death.

Of course, this is only us using imagination. Wanting to conduct an experiment is impossible, because today Dalian Snake Island is a national-level nature reserve, and snake vipers on the island are state-protected second-class animals. Not only would you not be allowed to release wild boars onto the island—strict approvals are required even for humans to go onto it. In July 2024, the Snake Island–Lao’tie Mountain migratory bird habitat was also listed in the World Heritage List.

Put two wild boars onto it to eat snakes? Obviously that would be a move that would land them in prison for life. However, if it really happened, the most likely scenario would still be that the wild boars are eliminated. After all, wild boars can eat far too much, and on an isolated island resources are limited. The places where snake vipers hide are not things that the pigs can root out with their noses. So the result would be that the wild boars starve to death—then become “takeout” for the snake vipers that wake up from winter dormancy or summer dormancy.