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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by agkistrodude on October 8, 2010
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Actually I don't remember if she was at the time or not. She has produced several times, so that is very possible. Take care, Marty
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 10, 2011
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This is a topic of interest due to a report my sister has made to me about copperheads around her house playing dead. To my knowledge, only elapids and hognosed snakes *regularly* play dead, although copperheads frequently engage in "freeze" behavior (at least in the parts of Texas where my family members live). (She is located just outside of Anderson, Texas; about 100 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, Houston, right about where the coastal plain meets rolling hills. It's mostly pastureland there.)
She has twice had to shoo copperheads out of her back yard to prevent them from being victimized by her dogs, and has twice found them in her front yard as well. On two occasions--one in back, one in front--the snake in question played dead. The one in back, having already been aggrieved by her dogs, was already on its back when she found it; the one in front flipped over as she approached. Both righted themselves and moved away when the coast was clear.
It is very unlikely that she has misidentified the snakes, but to get confirmation, I've asked her to try to photograph any she encounters from now on.
Is thanatosis a known phenomenon in copperheads? It seems to me at least possible that it can have evolved from simple "freezing", but I've encountered no sources that suggest this.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by LarryDFishel on June 10, 2011
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My experience suggests that unless your sister is actually a venomous keeper there is an excellent chance that she has misidentified the snakes. My money's on hognose.
Many people will swear up and down that they know exactly what a copperhead looks like (and be offended that you suggest that they might not) and you can show them a picture of a anything from a Dekays Snake to a Corn Snake, ask if it looks like THAT copperhead and they'll "yeah, that's the one."
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Cro on June 10, 2011
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I agree with Larry, and would want to see a photo of the "copperhead."
A copperhead that had been attacked and injured by a dog or cat, might be in a stunned state, even laying on its back or side, and might appear to be intentionally playing dead, but, most likely, it is just traumatized by the attack.
If these animals intentionally played dead, then there would be hundreds of accounts of the behavior, as there are many folks who will torment a venomous snake.
Best Regards
John Z
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 10, 2011
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OK, I get it. Nobody believes my sister, despite the fact that she has been 100% accurate in identifying copperheads throughout her entire life and is as calm and methodical an observer as anybody I've ever known. (I probably should have mentioned that she's working on her Master's project in biology...)
As soon as I have photographs in hand, I will personally email them to everybody who jumps on this bandwagon. I would post her previous copperhead photos right now, just to satisfy you that she can, in fact, identify them correctly, if I could see a way to attach them to my comments.
"A copperhead that had been attacked and injured by a dog or cat, might be in a stunned state, even laying on its back or side, and might appear to be intentionally playing dead, but, most likely, it is just traumatized by the attack."
Certainly. What's odd is the timing of the "recovery" in both instances. As soon as the dogs were hauled away, the critters righted themselves and began moving away. Doesn't it seem at least *possible* that events occurred just as she described?
"If these animals intentionally played dead, then there would be hundreds of accounts of the behavior..."
This I disagree with. There are new behaviors discovered in the animal kingdom every day, and snakes are no exception. Conventional wisdom 10 years ago was that colubrids are as a group (with rare exceptions) nonvenomous, and that garter snakes don't have fangs. That was overturned around 1990, once they were observed chewing on fingers in attempts to envenomate with their rear fangs. More recently, the conventional wisdom regarding carrion-eating in the wild has been overturned. Cat-eyed snakes have been observed targeting roadkilled frogs, and some cottonmouths in Florida have begun specializing in fish dropped by raptors.
What I'm suggesting is that playing dead is a modification of freezing behavior, and that some populations that engage in the latter might take the evolutionary step of engaging in the former. (It has to have come about in some way, right?) I've dug up reports of American colubrids other than Heterodon playing dead as well, such as Opheodrys.
It's a rare behavior, to be sure, but not vanishingly so.
At any rate, she's aware of my request for photographs, and I'm in a holding pattern until the next encounter.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Peter84Jenkins on June 10, 2011
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Well then, let her be the very first biologist in herpetological history to record playing dead as Contortrix behavior. As of now, it is not in any literature on the species and their behavior is very well documented. New, verifiable and recorded behavior is always welcome in any species.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by LarryDFishel on June 10, 2011
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"OK, I get it. Nobody believes my sister, despite..."
You gave us zero information about your sister in your first post, so I don't understand why you seem so upset that we didn't assume she is 1000 times more reliable than most of other people we've ever talked to...
"I would post her previous copperhead photos right now, just to satisfy you that she can..."
Feel free to email them to me.
"Doesn't it seem at least *possible* that events occurred just as she described?"
I don't entirely discount the possibility, but it seems exceedingly unlikely that in thousands of years of collective experience in the hobby no one has reported this, but your sister has seen it twice...
On the other hand, another possible explanation would be two separate observations of the same snake (copperhead or not) that happens to be sick. There are at least a few different diseases that can cause a snake to have orientation problems.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by LarryDFishel on June 10, 2011
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I quoted rather poorly in the above post. Yes, it's certainly possible that your sister observed exactly what she reported. What I meant was "exceedingly unlikely" was the explanation that this was "a copperhead playing dead".
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Cro on June 11, 2011
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Make a video tape of the copperhead behavior Berry, or it has meaningless value to the scientific community.
Sure, there are new discoveries that happen all the time in animal behavior. That is a good thing.
However, there are also a lot of things stated by folks that are simply not true. A good example is your statement that garter snakes have rear fangs. That is wrong. They do have enlarged teeth in the back of their mouth, and those teeth do allow them to use venom that they secrete into their mouths, but, those enlarged teeth do not meet the definition of a "fang" and should not be referred to that way.
And, fill out your Profile on this site, if you want to continue posting here. Because of the number of trolls visiting the site in recent times, we are requiring that profiles be filled in for those who want to post.
John Z
Site Manager
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by AquaHerp on June 11, 2011
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I've seen hundreds of these snakes in the wild. I can't say that I have ever noted this behavior.
Two points of minor disagreement here:
We have known about mild toxins in colubrids for much longer than 1990.
Simply because a person is working on a masters degree in biology does not in any fashion make them an expert at identifying species. I know of many PhDs that don't know one from another. This is not to say that this person's sister is not snake savvy, I'm just stating that a degree in biology does not make one an expert on everything biological.
It would be an interesting trait to document.
DH
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