Snakes are terrifying. The good thing is that snakes are mortal. They can no longer harm us after its head has been lopped off, right? Right?

National Geographic reports that Santa Cruz resident Thomas Scott recently found himself face-to-face with a rattlesnake. He valiantly chopped its head off, but found that nature is never that easy to subdue:

Holy sh*t, did you see that? The head literally jumped a few inches forward. It even bared its fangs a few times. This is either a zombie snake, or a case of immortality being applied to the wrong animal.

National Geographic says that it’s neither. Instead, reptiles, unlike mammals, retain their hunting reflexes up to an hour after death. That means that a severed rattlesnake head can still kill you after it’s been beheaded.

Armed with this knowledge, I expect all hikers to be equipped with flamethrowers from now on. It’s the only to be sure that this hellspawn remains dead.

[h/t: Geekologie]