There you go, but, its not about rain washing anything way. Its day to day and mostly underground. , no rain there. But your right, scent trails age and eventually disappear.



There are several other glands we really have no idea about. They have structures on their scales, etc. We mostly ignore them, but they don't, they have them because they have a purpose.



And yes, because its a behavior driven area, some individuals do not follow scent as well as others. With that there is value, say, if a predator picked up and exploited scent trails, The individuals that choose not to follow trails, could survive. Its a constant flow of this, then that. so the range of ways behavior is followed, is all part of longterm survival.



Now to bring it back to the original thread, this is also how bonding starts and why its important to kings. If they did not form these groups, then kings would be their main predator, as kings "know" what kings do and there would be no hiding from that. Or even the part about kings eating eggs and smaller animals(neonates) If they put the eggs somewhere, they would go eat them, but they don't, or at least some don't.



Even bonding with a female is not magical, if two kings pair up and are successful, the best possible chance of success is to repeat it, and keep repeating it until it stops working. Another way to look at it is, they do it because its the easiest possible choice to make. Finding a new mate/mates, year after year, or twice or three times a year, has the most chance of failure. This is probably more important with kings then say ratsnakes, as ratsnakes are not going to get devoured if they crawl up the wrong individual. But they do it as well. Thanks and keep it going

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