This article was authored by Emily Taylor, PhD, a member of the ASP Board of Directors.
Research can be an enjoyable experience! If it isn’t, then you may need to reassess your approach. This is what I frequently enough tell my students. as field biologists, we have the privilege of conducting research in the great outdoors on the wild animals that we are passionate about. We have the freedom to choose our research questions, design experiments, and observe how animals respond. One recent study published in Current Zoology exemplifies this freedom as we investigated the rain-harvesting behavior of wild Prairie Rattlesnakes in Colorado.
This study was led by undergraduate Madi McIntyre from Scott Boback’s lab at Dickinson Collage. Our team spent a month in Colorado during summer 2021 working together on various projects.The field site had multiple rookeries where numerous pregnant females basked all summer and eventually gave birth.
Rattlesnakes in high-elevation areas of northern Colorado emerge from hibernation extremely dehydrated. For pregnant females that remain at summer rookeries, rain is their main source of drinking water; however, storms are infrequent.Therefore, rattlesnakes maximize their rain harvesting by coiling up to collect rain within their coils and then drinking from their skin. Madi was interested in how sociality (i.e., large groups of snakes piled up together) affects their drinking behavior.
To examine rain-harvesting behavior, Madi approached wild snakes stealthily and carefully positioned the nozzle of a pump sprayer over their heads to simulate rain. Most rattlesnakes immediately changed their position and drank, allowing us to create the first illustrated ethogram of snake rain-harvesting behavior. We discovered that snakes drank from the ground and from their own bodies at similar frequencies but drank off a neighbor less frequently enough. Snakes tolerated other snakes drinking from their bodies without any competition arising; this appears to be a reciprocal behavior. We also observed engaging behaviors such as how snakes angled their heads or even their bodies to maximize rain harvesting. For instance, some snakes resting on hills would tilt their bodies downhill, causing water to flow down with gravity where it accumulated for them to drink. these are some smart snakes!
Ultimately, these behaviors help rattlesnakes maintain hydration under challenging circumstances where obtaining enough water is tough. With projected increased droughts throughout the American West, understanding rain-harvesting behavior will become increasingly crucial for these animals’ survival. Additionally, this research was an enjoyable experience for our team and gained media attention; people find rain-harvesting rattlesnakes adorable, making this project meaningful for improving public perception of these animals.
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Great information! Thanks for sharing this important topic.