Squirrel vs rattlesnake - Reptilenesia
This article is part of a series highlighting new research in snake biology presented by herpetologists at the World Congress of Herpetology VII in Vancouver, British Columbia. If you want to learn more about the WCH, check out the June 2012 issue of Herpetological Review, or follow the Twitter hashtag #wch2012, with which I will tag all posts in this series.
It might seem like a lopsided contest, but in the majority of interactions between Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) and California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi), the squirrels walk away with their lives. This surprising result come from Rulon Clark, who in his talk during the venomous snake evolution session of the WCH7 last week filled us in on the latest work from his behavioral ecology lab at San Diego State University. Building on the work done by mammalogists Richard Coss and Don Owings at UC Davis, the Clark lab studies what ground squirrels are trying to say to their rattlesnake predators. You see, when a ground squirrel encounters a rattlesnake, it performs a behavior known as 'tail flagging. You can see an example of this behavior in the first half of this video:
If you want to see more videos and stay current on the Clark lab's research, subscribe to their Youtube channel or to Strike, Rattle, & Roll, a rattlesnake behavior blog published by Clark lab PhD student Bree Putman.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Rulon Clark for his helpful review of this article.
REFERENCES
Barbour, M. A. and R. W. Clark. 2012. Ground squirrel tail-flag displays alter both predatory strike and ambush site selection behaviours of rattlesnakes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1112. <link>
Clark, R. W., S. Tangco, and M. A. Barbour. 2012. Field video recordings reveal factors influencing predatory strike success of free-ranging rattlesnakes (Crotalus spp.). Animal Behaviour 84:183-190. <link>
Clucas, B., D. H. Owings, and M. P. Rowe. 2008. Donning your enemy's cloak: ground squirrels exploit rattlesnake scent to reduce predation risk. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275:847-852. <link>
Coss, R. G. and D. H. Owings. 1978. Snake-directed behavior by snake naive and experienced California Ground Squirrels in a simulated burrow. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 48:421-435. <link>
Clark, R. W., S. Tangco, and M. A. Barbour. 2012. Field video recordings reveal factors influencing predatory strike success of free-ranging rattlesnakes (Crotalus spp.). Animal Behaviour 84:183-190. <link>
Clucas, B., D. H. Owings, and M. P. Rowe. 2008. Donning your enemy's cloak: ground squirrels exploit rattlesnake scent to reduce predation risk. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275:847-852. <link>
Coss, R. G. and D. H. Owings. 1978. Snake-directed behavior by snake naive and experienced California Ground Squirrels in a simulated burrow. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 48:421-435. <link>
Owings, D. H. and R. G. Coss. 1977. Snake mobbing by California ground squirrels: adaptive variation and ontogeny. Behaviour 62:50-69. <link>
Rundus AS, Owings DH, Joshi SS, Chinn E, Giannini N (2007) Ground squirrels use an infrared signal to deter rattlesnake predation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:14372-14376 <link>
Rundus AS, Owings DH, Joshi SS, Chinn E, Giannini N (2007) Ground squirrels use an infrared signal to deter rattlesnake predation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:14372-14376 <link>
Life is Short, but Snakes are Long by Andrew M. Durso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
