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RE: Frank

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Posted by: Aaron at Wed May 30 14:28:09 2012   [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Aaron ]  
   

I look at evidence from several different areas because kings are among the more secretive of snakes. They are also fairly thin skinned which means they probably dehydrate pretty easily and I think this is part of why they're secretive. So I take observations of other snakes apply them to kings. When I say "apply"I don't mean that for sure kings do what those other snakes do, I just mean the capacity is probably there. I think that if say a rattlesnake or a gartersnake has a similar size brain as a king, similar body structure as a kings, eats same or similar size prey as a king and deals with the same or similar predators as a king, then kings probably have similar capacity to those snakes. It's not a sure thing, it's just the capacity is there for kings to engage in the same or similar behaviors.

Like Frank said(or I think this is what he said - sometimes it's hard to decipher posts on the internet), I think it starts with home ranges, ie whether they naturally have them or don't. We can see from studies where they released rattlesnakes and racers that when you release a rattlesnake a certain distance from it's capture site it tends to wander until it dies. Racers do the same thing but it's farther than with rattlesnakes. I think it was if you release a rattlesnake more than a mile from it's capture site it usually wanders and dies. With racers I think it was two miles and they wander and die.

So that indicates to me that snakes can have home ranges. Then if you can find lots of kings in one area and they in fact do have home ranges then it's almost a certainty that individuals will encounter each other repeatedly over time. If there's repeated encounters occuring within a prescribed area then I think the basis for social interaction is there. To what level they interact and how sophisticated those interactions are is up for debate. Whether we should try to duplicate that in captivity is another big issue.
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