Cat and "Snake"

I observed some curious behavior in one of my cats today. My younger son has a toy snake; it's very obviously fake, blue, made of hard plastic with a big goofy face, not one of those rubber ones that can be mistaken for an actual snake. It was laying at the foot of my set of drawers that I keep office supplies and miscellaneous junk in.

Somehow, my younger cat, Scrumpy, became interested in it. I didn't know what he was looking at, but he was very interested, and kept inching forward, slowly, one paw out and cautiously extended toward the snake. I touched his back and he jumped across the room, but he came back almost immediately and resumed his odd behavior. Normally, this cat is the biggest goofball I've ever seen a cat be, but he was intent and serious. I watched for a second, and he quickly batted at the snake and pulled his paw back. This went on a few more times before I picked up the snake and he jumped away, eyes still firmly on the thing. I waved it around and he batted at it, each time becoming more and more comfortable with it until he ended up ignoring it in favor of sniffing around and investigating the area where the snake had been laying. Once he determined that there were no more snakes to be found, he wandered off.

What I found so intriguing is that this cat is an indoor cat. He's never seen a snake before in his life (that I know of... he did spend a couple days hiding under a neighbor's porch when he ran off once). That means that this behavior has to be instinct, especially since there is very little that actually is snake-like about the toy; as I mentioned, it's bright blue and has a big, goofy face. I don't know if it was the tongue that set him off, or the diamond-patterned stickers that are on each section of the snake, but he was DETERMINED in his mission to make sure it wasn't a threat. I find this fascinating.