>>>>>>L. zonata does not live in rock crevices year round. They only spend the winter in such places. When the weather has warmed up, they disperse into the woodland areas surrounding the rock outcrops and they are exceedingly difficult to find once they have dispersed from their winter retreats. This is a well known fact.

Really. You have data to support this or have you just been listening to Hubbs again.

>>>>>Therefore Rick Staub's hypothesis that the injuries seen in wild zonata are the result of attacks by predators while they are inside shallow crevices would need to be supported by evidence. His theory is that such attacks can drive the more experienced snakes into deeper crevices through learning. That is certainly possible but there is little evidence that any predator (other than human snake collectors) routinely hunt the rock crevices for L. zonata.

Really. You have data to support negligible hunting of rocks by predators of L zonata?


>>>>>>>In fact, some of snakes that were caught by Rick Staub and then released were found in the same easily accessible crevices in subsequent years. Rick even cut off parts of the tails of these individuals to collect DNA samples, and yet such injuries did not cause these snakes to look for deeper and more inacessible crevices. Therefore, the available evidence argues against Rick Staub's own hypothesis. Rick Staub's own snakes did not learn. May be he did not apply enough negative reinforcement! LOL

Only a single capture for tail clipping. Maybe the remainder of times they did not associate with a predation event. Of course I only said that the adult females were wily. Unless you have hacked my data you would not know what animals I was recapturing. FYI mainly sub-adults and males.


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Rick Staub

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