Hi Woldsman,

Welcome to the forum — and I hope you get an answer to your question. Any herpetologists out there who'd like to put forward an answer? (Unfortunately it's not my chosen specialist subject.)

It's certainly an interesting one. There was a story of a dead grass snake in the magazine only recently (although I can't for the life of me remember which one of Shooting Times' writers was discussing it). Essentially the grass snake feigns death very effectively, and then when the threat has passed returns to life.

Now as I said, I'm no expert, but I suspect your dead grass snake might have been a very live one (unless you know it was decomposing/long dead).

That still doesn't explain your lurcher's reaction.

Can anyone shed some light on this — I think it's a fascinating query.

Alastair.