Phil, I am starting to see why we differ in our thoughts. First, if you are doing a study, its your job to know what they are feeding on. So your suppose to investigate. For sure, the old make them regrug, is horrible to do all the time, but you may have to from time to time. We also palpate and/or express feces. This tells you what they have been feeding on, such as mammal hair, lizard/snake scales, feathers, hard insect parts, etc. The combination of the two methods gives a fair idea of what they are feeding on. If you want to know exactly, then up with the meal/s.
Not to make this more then it is, there are reasons we differ and those reasons are based not on us personally, but how we research(which is based on paradigms) and for what lenght of time. You see time allows us to get over set paradigms and acquire new ones, hahahahahahahahaha, hmmmmmm true that is.
For instance, TC was encountering wonderful meaningful events, such as gravid young massa's, but he failed to investigate, so he did not know they were gravid, or full of food, what kind of food, what stage of development the ovum/embryos were, etc. You see, theres a difference in meaning an event/observation, takes when you consider whats going on inside it.
Consider this, your strong in your beliefs, and you back it by numbers of sightings, but what kind of sightings do you have numbers of. Do you have numbers of varied types of sightings that include major life events. Events like the above mentioned, stomach contents, body cavity contents, regional temps, not just cloacal. Events like nesting, breeding, feeding, etc etc. Not just a snake under tin. A range of behaviors is far more important then numbers of one or two, in determining what snakes are doing. An example is this paper a monitor biologist did. He cited 5400 observations of this one species, and in his paper told of the behavior of this species in an area. He gave stats up the bum, etc etc, told of nesting, etc. When I questioned him on some basics like, did he ever see them breed, he said, and I quote, they saw two tails sticking out of a hole in a tree. For a few minutes. hmmmmmmmm not confirmed, or resemble what these monitors really do, but, even if it was so, 5400 observations and one possible breeding. Then I asked, after he had discribed a nesting area, did you see them nest? he said yes. He said, and again I quote, they saw a fat female go into a hole and come out skinny. Ok, but did you see eggs, or babies, he answered no. He explained, he would not disturb the nest. I agree that would not be nice, but after they hatch, you can find the egg shells Reptile egg shells last forever(it seems) So in 5400 sightings, there were one possible breeding and one possible nesting, but neither were confirmed. So what were the sightings? basically they were when these monitors bask on a branch in the mourning. So you have 5398 lizards on a branch and two other questionable(unproven) sightings. Yet, the paper was published with all sort of data(i wonder where it came from) about the life cycle of this varanid species. And you wonder how we get misled and have false paradigms.
As a simple example, we are taught that snakes are cold blooded and they reflect the temps of the enviornment. Which is true, but, but, and big butt, its so very rare for a snake to actually have the same cloacal temp as the enviornment its in. In fact, its rare a snake has the same head temp as its own cloacal temp.
Lets try this, you find a snake thats cloacal temp is 17c, the ground temp where it was sitting is 30c, the air temp is 28c. This gives you the impression that snake was recently somewhere that was 17c. Where? if you dig around, you may find that 17c is found at a certain depth. Don't get me wrong, this cannot be used as fact, but it gives you an idea where it came from. In certain cases, we have found a trail that leads to sheds where the snake was staying in the ground, what is that temp?
We also find snakes sitting on ground temps that are 24c and have cloacal temp of 32c, this gives you the idea that the snake was recently in a hotter area, where? what if you cannot find an area that hot? hmmmmmmm unfortunately that does happen.
What we can say is, snakes are constantly changing their body temps forth and back. They do so for so obvious reasons, such as food, gravid, shed, etc. but also for not so obvious reasons.
To tie this together a little, I have asked you to investigate for a reason, if you actually checked out your snakes in hibernation, you may find that they are also changing temps back and forth, and containing ovum or embryos, or food bolus, etc. Which would exclude the term hibernation.
Remember, you may be right, they are hibernating, but how do you know your right? you did not check.
Back to cannibalism, whats odd is, I watch colonies of snakes, they are often sitting next to or within inches of eachother, I have watched them for years and years, the same snakes. They did not eat eachother, even if they were snake eating types. And you would be surprised just what snakes consume other snakes. Thanks FR
