Carnivore Minds by G. A. Bradshaw

Author:G. A. Bradshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Beverly protecting her nest. Photo credit: Roger Repp.

Aside from ground squirrels, what other kinds of relationships do rattlesnakes have, and what is known about a rattler’s inner world? For many years, even knowledgeable rattlesnake natural historians did not notice these relationships, or were blinded by the prevailing belief that rattlesnakes had no social inclinations aside from mating. Even the existence of a maternal bond was dismissed. “Their propinquity, such as it is, does not result from any maternal solicitude; rather it is only because the refuge sought by the mother is also used as a hiding place by the young.”41 But recent, careful observations have led to the discovery of both rattlesnake social sensibilities and ethical inclinations. Similar to bears and orcas, snakes have social protocol and etiquette that they follow.

Acquiring data on rattler social habits is not easy. Rattlesnakes are notoriously cryptic—they seem a private, shy, or introverted species. It is possible to study rattlesnakes in the more accessible conditions of a lab, and people do, but if the goal is to understand emotions and sociality, it is much more reasonable to do so in a natural setting, where the subject is not threatened and stressed by experimental prodding and poking in a glass-walled tank that in no way resembles natural snake habitat. This was the logic that inspired the method behind Melissa Amarello’s serpentine madness, her passion for studying snakes, and rattlesnakes in particular.

In 2001, Amarello moved from Kentucky to the full-blown rattlesnake country of Arizona. There she would put her lifelong fascination with snakes to work in a series of projects on the natural history and conservation of snakes in the southwestern United States and Mexico. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in wildlife, watershed, and rangeland resources at the University of Arizona, Melissa continued her studies in a doctoral program in the Biology Department at Arizona State University. There she began looking into rattlesnake social behavior. She and others have discovered that, in addition to interspecies discourse with ground squirrels, snakes have ties that bind.42 In particular, timber rattlers, one of the largest rattlesnake species, exhibit “key characteristics of other taxa regarded as social [such as] kin recognition, group defense and parental care.”43 Related female snakes who were raised for two and a half years in a laboratory setting gravitated toward and entwined with their litter mates, while those who were not related stayed apart.44 It is also generally assumed and observed that most snakes are polygamous, but there are verified cases of copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) bonding in pairs.45 Other rattlesnakes show similar civil leanings.

Using time-lapse trail cameras that recorded rattlesnake movements and interactions, Amarello and fellow researcher Jeff Smith filmed Arizona black rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerberus) engaging in a number of social activities. Black rattlers inhabit the backbone of Arizona’s mountainous terrain and get their name from their skin that blackens with time and is crisscrossed with startling orange and white lines.

By quantifying snake-to-snake associations and analyzing the data using social network analysis, a method used to

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