Trevor Rosario
Pronouns: He/Him/His
UROP Fellowship: Engineering
Research Mentor(s): Talia Moore, PhD
Robotics Institute
Presentation Date: Monday, July 27, 2020 | Session 2 | Presenter: 6
Authors: Trevor Rosario, Talia Y. Moore
Abstract
Some prey use anti-predatory signals to deter predators from attacking, but how long must prey maintain anti-predatory signals to survive an encounter with a predator? Direct observation of predation on snakes is rare, so analyzing the duration of snake anti-predator displays allows us to indirectly guess the average predation attempt length that would be experienced in the wild. In venomous snakes, like cottonmouths, a higher baseline corticosterone (CORT) stress hormone concentration in cottonmouths makes them more likely to strike during the initial encounter. Harmless male red-sided garter snakes show a significant increase in plasma CORT and a significant decrease in plasma testosterone in response to capture stress. Based on these previous findings, we would expect snakes mimicking vipers to have a similar response to that of the cottonmouth. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing anti-predator behavioral displays exhibited by snakes of the Xenodon genus, which are non venomous mimics of coral snakes and vipers. Shortly after their capture from the jungle, we collected videos of Xenodon severus and Xenodon rabdocephalus in an enclosure while a stimulus was introduced at random intervals. We analyzed the behavior of the head, body, and tail separately. Overall, the Xenodon response to stimulus began with vigorous striking and gaping, but later trials showed significantly less activity. The two species demonstrated different rates of behavior attenuation. These results demonstrate that even closely related snakes may experience different predation stresses. In a broader context, data from mimetic species provide a comparison to the behavior of venomous species and harmless species in a predator-prey encounter.
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Research Disciplines
Engineering, Environmental Studies, Interdisciplinary, Natural Sciences, Life Sciences
