RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Rob_Carmichael on June 12, 2011
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I'll add to Doug's comment. I've had many master degree students in biology study under me. All are passionate about herpetology. All are rookies in the field when they begin despite their vast book knowledge. They make ID mistakes plain and simple and that's part of the learning process and I enjoy mentoring them. I hate it when folks come on here and ask questions but when they get responses that are different from what they want to hear they get their panties all bunched up in a knot. There's no doubt that a copperhead exhibiting death feigning behavior would be pretty significant but there has to be proof. A student working on a M.S. degree doesn't come close (and I have a MS degree so I can make that comment). Doug, I'm still hoping to get to the BOR...still have a couple of hurdles with the higher ups to get through (nothing can be easy in government).
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by AquaHerp on June 12, 2011
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Hope to see you there Rob. I hear ya though, between speaking at both asymposiums and a week in the feild with the rufipunctatus, it's tough to convince them that I'll only be at the zoo for a week! LOL
DH
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by AquaHerp on June 12, 2011
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For the record though.. Kelly a.k.a. nietzsche is pretty snake savvy in her own right.
DH
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Rob_Carmichael on June 12, 2011
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Sounds like it Doug. I've got a student right now (studying eastern garter snakes on our savanna) who is also quite savvy for a grad student. I've also had students who despite an impressive resume, were completely inept in the field - but we take baby steps with them. Hoping for good news this week with BOR.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by nietzsche on June 13, 2011
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Hi All,
Thanks for all the interesting info. It would be truly awesome if Bfyy's sister did document it. If she could note the temperature, general fitness of the snake, or any other observations that might have an effect on its behavior that would be wonderful too!
P.S Doug,
Blow the dust of your maps of Tucson and hold onto your kidneys....BOR is almost here!!!!!
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 14, 2011
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I am not in a position to videotape the behavior, folks. I don't live where this is happening. The onus is on her to record her observations.
Believe me, I'd love to present this to the scientific community. But for the time being, I'm presenting it to YOU. I'm just *asking the question*, folks. I'm not defending a thesis.
My sister and my parents visited me this weekend, and while I showed off my Elaphe guttata pair to them, we discussed snakes, as well as the demand for verification of her sightings. She full acknowledges that the second of her two sightings may well have been a hognosed snake, as she was separated from it by a fence, more than 20 feet away, and did not observe it flip upright and move away (and therefore did not see the top markings). However, the first sighting occurred mere feet away from her, and she avers that it was the same set of markings as in her previous photographs, which I, my father and my mother all agree are of Agkistrodon.
If anyone is interested in seeing those initial photographs, I'll need your email addresses.
The only umbrage I've taken so far is the suggestion that my sister is not a skilled observer. I didn't initially mention that she was a Master's candidate in biology because her specialty isn't herp; I mentioned it later only to point out that she has training in observation. (For that matter--and more relevant to the topic at hand--she is also a Texas Master Naturalist. I wouldn't expect her to, say, be able to identify all the species of Crotalus in her vicinity, but I would expect her to be able to distinguish a pit viper from a colubrid.)
On a side note, it may well be the case that general toxicity in colubrids was known prior to 1990, but the first paper I encountered on the subject was published that year, and in every review I've since encountered, it has been treated as game-changing.
So my point remains: "conventional wisdom" exists to be overturned, and new discoveries are made all the time. This would be a boring field otherwise, and we'd all be reduced to congratulating each other for always agreeing on everything.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 14, 2011
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"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."
Take it up with those who've published on the subject and who call them "fangs". What's the difference between the "enlarged rear teeth" of Thamnophis and the "fangs" of Heterodon?
*shrug*
"And, fill out your Profile on this site, if you want to continue posting here."
Where, exactly? When I click on my username, I'm presented with a login screen. Unusual, considering I'm already logged in.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 14, 2011
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"I hate it when folks come on here and ask questions but when they get responses that are different from what they want to hear they get their panties all bunched up in a knot."
I didn't *want* to hear anything. I was expecting answers, nothing more. I was *not* expecting commentary on my sister's observational skills.
I know her. You don't.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by LarryDFishel on June 14, 2011
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First, for everyone else, Berry emailed me a set of photos and they are all of copperheads, so that question is answered. Hes sister DOES know what a copperhead looks like.
Berry, on the left side of the screen in the black area is a "button" labeled "My Profile".
We really weren't so much questioning your sister's powers of observation as wanting to establish whether she actually knew what a copperhead looks like. Most people who claim they do, do not, including many biologists. Her photos answer that part of the question.
As someone who has spent a lot of time speaking with visitors in the snake room at a wildlife refuge, I can't tell you how many times I've had someone tell me that they (or their brother/or father) have seen an 11 foot rattlesnake, a copperhead 500 miles outside their range, or a big cottonmouth in a tree and they get just as offended when you suggest that they might be mistaken. So, please try to see our skepticism from that point of view.
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RE: venomous snakes that play dead
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by Byff on June 14, 2011
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I do understand. I have to deal with a fair amount of ignorance on the subject, and I'm not even a professional.
Now please consider things from my perspective. The main thing this community has going for it is that its members term themselves experts. At some point in the past, none of those members were actually part of the community, and had to be onboarded and accepted *somehow*. Was each new entry greeted with a similar degree of skepticism?
Having engaged in hundreds if not thousands of online discussions, debates and arguments, I've grown a fairly thick skin, but it fails me when dealing with family and friends who aren't on hand to defend themselves. As you can probably tell, I'm quite proud of my family, who in my opinion set a standard for observation and stewardship. Please pardon me if I've got my dander up reflexively. It's a conditioned response.
I also don't expect anybody to jump to any conclusions based on a single instance of hearsay. But--and please, everybody, take this advice in the spirit it's given--science would never progress if all its participants engaged in nothing but defense of orthodoxy. If we can't at least *consider* a new possibility, then we're probably in the wrong field.
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