Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone have any theories, reasons, guesses or maybe even facts as to why Pigmy rattlesnakes head-flick when first encountered in the wild?

The stop doing it in captivity after a few days, and I've also noticed that newborns will do it but also stop after a few days in captivity....

The only other species that I know that does it was one individual mole king that I found roadcrusing a couple of years ago. I've never seen another mole king do it, nor have I seen any other species of hots do it.

I've never encountered a wild massasauga, but I'm assuming they *might* do it.

Has anyone ever seen another species other than S. miliarius do it, and ... any guesses as to why they do it?

I had a dusky pygmy that did it, even while it was in captivity for almost 2 years. I think they mostly do it when agitated or annoyed. I had a green eyelash viper that did it as well, but only when I was trying to get it to feed.

I've seen at least gaboons and rhinos do it. I think it's a "look at my big scary head" sort of threat, but I can't rule out that it could be to attract curious rodents. Maybe they do both, but I haven't seen it enough to draw a conclusion.

Up and down like a territorial lizard would do? Kind of a nod? Or is it a side to side movement? If it only happens when they are first encountered....perhaps they are tryin to get a "range" on the offending disturbance (you). I would think, if maybe their eyes and/or heat sensing abilities are not all that great, they may have trouble with range perception. And if that IS the case, twitching from side to side, or top to bottom may help them get a better feel for where and how CLOSE you are. Just a thought.

it's a quick up and down motion, very fast, not very far, ......... definitely different fromt the sway that is seen in Bitis, and not side to side like crotalids sometimes do when using the pits to triangulate.

it can be most described as a 'twitch' I guess.

Hi:

As Larry said it's common with the Larger members of the Bitis group. In addition to maybe an attraction for curious rodents after receint observations of my Juv Rhino it also maybe some sort of warning. She was not interested in feeding and started this head bobbing routine. When she's hungry, she just slowly stalks the "simulated" live food on the end of my forceps. When I then move it into range...Wack she's got it.
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Al

You can take the animal out of the jungle but you can never take the jungle out of the animal.

I've seen verticle 'head flicks' in eyelash vipers that were refusing food and two species in the wild, eastern saugas and eastern milksnakes. The saugas did it prior to being physically disturbed, while the milk did it shortly after it had been contained. The eyelashs' were captive born animals.

I like the idea about it being a way to gain perspective of size and distance, but how would that work in snakes that weren't capable of picking up thermal signals? Sounds like it would be worth investigating.

Today is feeding day for my collection. I fed my Juv Rhino her first f/t mouse and then she had a "day old Quail" I introduced another after she was finished and she started the "head bobbing", so I stopped and withdrew the second quail. She was clearly not interested in more quail. For the mouse & first quail she actively stalked the "prey" I was slowly moving around.

If I had thought of it at the time, it would have been very interesting to have tried another mouse and see what her reaction was. I will plan this experiment for the next scheduled feeding.

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Al

You can take the animal out of the jungle but you can never take the jungle out of the animal.