Posted by:
ratsnakehaven
at Sun Nov 13 07:20:30 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by ratsnakehaven ]
Thanks for the answer. I've been investigating snakes and many other things of the natural environment since I was a little boy and my father would bring stuff home for me. We both had a love of nature and wanted to know the "why" of everything. By the time I was twelve, the only source of info I had besides my father, and the little Golden Book of snakes, was the Detroit Zoo. Believe it or not, they didn't have very many answers back then either. Not many were studying milksnakes or E. massasaugas. There weren't very many books I could read on snakes in our little library. I learned to guess or predict the answers to get myself to the next level. I think a lot of us old timers do this.
In today's world the young kids are on the computers all the time. ASAMOF, I rarely see kids that are taking advantage of the environment and just going out and answering their own questions by looking. Mostly they research by going on the internet and asking the question and relying on someone else's knowledge. I think they think everything is known already and they just have to ask the right person or the right question.
FR, I think you're right. We do need to see for ourselves and go out and watch the snakes and see what they are doing. That's why I keep bringing up examples of what I've seen in the past, so we can add that to our mix of things we've seen. I think Phil does that also. He's a great guy in how he handles the animals he sees and he's given us lots of info to work with with his observations. I can't tell you how many cool discoveries he's made that I wish I had the opportunity to do. But the frustrating thing is that we can't make many observations when the snakes are down under for months at a time in winter. There are no windows for most of us, like you have. What you are doing is great, but I think the best I can do and maybe Phil too, is to find a hibernaculum and watch it. But I've done that before and mainly all you see is the snakes going in and the snakes coming out and that may be months apart.
You're right, that the different age groups in a population do different things, I'm definitely agreeing with that. It isn't easy for me to confirm what you're saying, but I do have some experience through the years that might help. In time I'll try to relay some of that experience, but for now I'll agree the young of the year, and probably subadults too, are willy nilly all over the place, whereas the adults are tending to hang out together. It depends on the location, I think. Sometimes they're all in the same location because it's just a great spot to spend the winter. But the babies tend to stay away from adults I think, whether intentionally or because they are just doing different things like you said. This all has a lot to do with the reproductive mode of the adults and the fact they don't need to eat or grow during this time, and the juveniles that do want to eat as long as possible in most cases (except maybe far north) and want to stay active as long as possible so they can grow as much as possible. This is a great concept to work with.
I'll try to be more specific when talking about a snake population and not make it sound like all the snakes are doing the same thing in that population. I know I haven’t seen all the things that snakes do. It’s very frustrating not being able to see into their world in winter.
Let me give, for example, an Eastern milksnake population I used to study near Lake Huron, that was in an industrial area near a town, and where the city used to dump a lot of stuff, like construction materials and dirt, gravel, etc. This site doesn’t exist anymore because it was bulldozed over to make way for an industrial park type thing. This is what it looked like, sort of, before the change….
This is what it looked like after being bulldozed…
Here’s a couple in situ pics of milksnakes at their hibernaculum…
These pics aren't that great because they were taken before I started using the computer and the digital camera.
The snakes were photoed "in situ" at the hibernaculum site. The pair was resting under a large limestone rock and the single adult was just emerging from a hole leading into the hibernaculum. It was the month of May. No juveniles were ever seen at the hibernaculum, but a few were found within 20 or 30 yards of the site at about the same time of year. Dozens of adults were seen at the hibernaculum for about a week, or so, in May, over a three yr. period. They would disperse after that to forage for the season and other activities.
I have to assume that the adults were congregating in the hibernaculum to rest, cycle, and mate in the spring. Unfortunately, the site no longer exists. I do have another site near Lake Huron and plan to investigate it this coming spring. We aren't able to see down into the hibernaculums to watch the snakes or take temps. We have to observe from a distance, and it's frustrating when you have to wait about six months before there's any surface activity.
Thanks for listening...TC
[ Hide Replies ]
- To sum up the thread on northern vs. western deserts, - FR, Fri Nov 11 12:19:49 2005
- Thanks for the summary - Mark Banczak, Fri Nov 11 13:37:11 2005
- RE: To sum up the thread on northern vs. western deserts, - ratsnakehaven, Fri Nov 11 16:34:40 2005
- RE: To sum up the thread on northern vs. western deserts, - Phil Peak, Fri Nov 11 16:59:34 2005
- RE: To sum up the thread on northern vs. western deserts, - guero, Fri Nov 11 21:08:03 2005
- RE: To sum up the thread on northern vs. western deserts, - HKM, Fri Nov 11 23:24:25 2005
- Question... - ratsnakehaven, Sat Nov 12 21:03:14 2005
- RE: Why not? - FR, Sat Nov 12 23:34:05 2005
 More notes on winter activity...(long w/pix) - ratsnakehaven, Sun Nov 13 07:20:30 2005
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