Reptile & Amphibian Forums

>>I've found that baby hogs don't really feel secure in a tank as large as 10g.

I am very curious about this statement, and this post is not necessarily directed personally at hissytry who stated this in the post below. I am bringing this up for a general discussion in the forum. I have heard this very same statement for years now, and I am seriously questioning its authenticity. I wonder how exactly this "feeling of security" is interpreted by people and how it actually relates to the successful captive care of hognoses (or any other snake).

Generally, the statement is counterintuitive, and directly contradicts the findings of countless numbers of published accounts of juvenile dispersion. Heck, the same general concept is true for not only vertebrates, but invertebrates and plants, that is the need for progeny to disperse away from the parents to ensure the survival of the species (a horrible oversimplification of course).

For instance, a comparative study of hognoses in Florida using road surveys and drift fences/pitfall traps, found significantly more hognoses DOR. Want to guess which age group of hognoses were killed the most? "Young of year" and juveniles. Kelly Leavesley found the most probable cause of juvenile mortality was starvation. Therefore it becomes very important for hatchlings to disperse away from each other so they are not competing for the same prey.

Basically it boils down to this. How can an animal that is hardwired for traveling long distances feel so insecure in the relatively confined space of even a 10 gallon tank? Has anyone on this forum ever actually looked at the differences in defensive behaviors of hatchlings hognoses in different sized tanks?

I think one incredible flaw in the reasoning of the "insecurity" issue here, is that herps simply don't recognize the walls of their tank, and they certainly don't recognize them like we do. Everyone here has seen instances of animals thinking they can go straight through a pane of glass. Therefore, if a hognose is unable to recognize the barriers of its container how can it possibly know the difference between a 5 gallon tank and a 50 gallon tank, or a 500 square-foot room? How can someone say a snake feels more secure in a 5 gallon tank, when the snake doesn't know it is in a 5 gallon tank?
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

If there is a just God, how humanity would writhe in its attempt to justify its treatment of animals. - Isaac Asimov

Hatchling snakes take their sense of "security" from being able to find a secure place to hide, not the limits of their environment. The real world is a heck of a lot bigger than a 55 gallon aquarium! Give them a secure hide box and they do great.

I also agree about their activity. Hatchling hogs are one of the most common dirunal AOR and DOR snakes in the late summer in South Carolina.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

just that, and glass walls won't provide anything. Be it a room sized enclosure, a 5 gallon rubbermaid, or the wild, these guys need to feel like they're semi detached from a predator's view. I"m talking snakes in general. I"ve never kept hognose specifically as they are illegal in my area. Therefore a "secure" enclosure includes lots of ground cover. The snake should be free to move from hot to cold to dry to humid without worrying about attack. For some species this is as simple as a hide box and a cage in a low traffic area. For other's it means a diverse, naturalistic habitat.

Just my 2 cents, nothing that I've tested extensively or anything

Ian

Thanks for your replies Chris and Ian. I happened to come across the abstract for the road survey I mentioned. It's also on Southerns so it has some relevancy to the post below. It won't let me post a link directly to the article, so scroll down and look for Heterodon simus.
Click here for the link...

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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

If there is a just God, how humanity would writhe in its attempt to justify its treatment of animals. - Isaac Asimov