Melissa

Rattlesnake sociality exists, it’s complex, and likely occurs in multiple species

Muleshoe / /

Rattlesnake sociality exists, it’s complex, and likely occurs in multiple species

Drs. Rulon W. Clark, William S. Brown, Randy Stechert, and Harry W. Greene [1] found cryptic sociality in timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus). Timber rattlesnakes use communal winter dens and pregnant females aggregate together at rookeries to gestate their young. Clark and colleagues collected DNA samples from rattlesnakes to examine relatedness within these aggregations. While all individuals from the same den were not related, (…read more)

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Rattlesnake sociality exists, it’s complex, and likely occurs in multiple species

Behavior, Social behavior, SocialSnakes / /

Drs. Rulon W. Clark, William S. Brown, Randy Stechert, and Harry W. Greene [1] found cryptic sociality in timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus). Timber rattlesnakes use communal winter dens and pregnant females aggregate together at rookeries to gestate their young. Clark and colleagues collected DNA samples from rattlesnakes to examine relatedness within these aggregations. While all

Rattlesnake sociality exists, it’s complex, and likely occurs in multiple species Read More »

Drinking

SocialSnakes / /

Drinking is a behavior rarely seen in wild snakes. In fact, some would say that snakes don’t need to drink. While it is rare to see this behavior, snakes do drink and likely need water in addition to what they acquire from their food. How important drinking is to snakes became very clear to me

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Survivors

Behavior, Parental care, SocialSnakes / /

Arizona Black Rattlesnake Babies that Survived their First Winter It is always a little sad to say goodbye to the Arizona Black Rattlesnake families at the end of the nesting season. It’s a difficult time for the neonates (newborns); in this population they have less than a month to find their first meal and locate

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November

Muleshoe / /

November was a month of lost snakes, found snakes, and Jaydin’s (our male black-tailed rattlesnake) wild ride. View from Boyett’s den Henry (male western diamond-backed rattlesnake) disappeared for the first couple weeks of November. How do you lose a giant rattlesnake? Easy: when you first have trouble locating him, climb the steepest hills nearby assuming

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October draws to a close

Muleshoe / /

I’ve always thought of October as the end of the snake season. Snakes settle into their dens and we check on them less frequently because they are no longer making long movements. But, if you ignore snakes over the winter, you’ll miss out on some really cool behavior, like this: A poor quality video of

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Sigma vs. the Squirrel

Behavior, SocialSnakes / /

Squirrels and rattlesnakes have a complicated relationship. Some squirrels have developed resistance to rattlesnake venom so that an adult squirrel can survive a rattlesnake bite. Juvenile squirrels cannot, so they are often still prey to rattlesnakes. Because of their resistance, adult squirrels will confront rattlesnakes that wander near their colonies and sometimes even kill them!

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Scenes from a New Den

SocialSnakes / /

Shortly after we were told about a new social rattlesnake den, we hiked in to check it out, saw one Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox), and decided to set up one of our timelapse cameras. We were a little surprised at all the activity in just the first two days of our monitoring. Here are

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