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Travel Patterns
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by eholt on April 18, 2002
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Now that it is warming up, I am hoping to find some snakes outside. Usually when I spot a snake in the wild or around the house, I will not find it there again.
1. Do snakes have a home range like some other animals that they live within or do they just travel from place to place (assuming there is adequate food in the area)?
2. Do snakes use the same cover or do they hide in different places?
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RE: Travel Patterns
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by TAIPAN78 on April 18, 2002
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Hello,
Very good questions. Basicly, it all boils down to the sp in question. For the most part our native serpents revolve their lives around a den site. Some obviously more then others. For instance, timber rattlers and alot of your higher elevation sp must revolve their lives around a den site in order to survive. In thses colder climates, good, deep rock fixtures and out cropings which are needed to give the snakes somewhere deep enough to get away from the cold are few and far between so the snake will genneraly span out a certin radius from the den during the warmer months and start to return in the fall. This also explains why one can find such large congregations of snake, either 1 sp or many sp, utilizeing the same dening area. There are just not enough to really go around.
Now, with regards to sp in warmer climates who gennerally find single hibernation sites, I belive they are alot more nomadic and probally move around for much greater distances because of the longer warm period and genneraly mild winters. They do however still stay in a fimilar range cause a snake wouldnt have a very good chance to avoid predatation if they were not fimilar with there surroundings and didnt know were to hide.
Also, genneraly males are much more nomadic then females. Males almost always have a larger home ranges because their goal in life is to mate with as many females as posible to pass on its genes to the next generation and a male who stayed in the same area year round would not have the oppirtunity to acomplish this goal. Also, going back to sp in higher elevation, usualy the female will stay rather close to a den site because when they become gravid and get ready to give birth, they do so in numbers to help the babies have a decent chance and too also make sure the babies can find the den site while they are still so small and vunureble.
As for snake useing the same cover over and over again, well, some people I know have said they have found the same snake under a peice of cover, sometimes several days in a row but usualy I would imagine this would just be a breif rest stop if you will that they utilize while wandering their territory. Now again, im baseing all of this on NA snake and sp in other regions of the world will be different. For instance, alot of true Naja sp(cobra) and D.polylepis(blk mamba)wil remain at the same lair for their whole lives if not disturbed.
Welp, That got kinda long. I hope this helps ya some and I look foward to reading other opinions about this.
All the Best,
Jeremy
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RE: Travel Patterns
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by filthy on April 20, 2002
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Jeremy's right.
Timbers faithly stay in a home range, however this range might be fairly large. They are known to travel several miles from the hibernaclum and back during the feeding season.
Lowland snakes like Canebreke Rattlers are also known to often use the same spot to hibernate year after year as well, but not in large congregations. And even with these, other species might be sharing a rotted out stump with them.
As a general rule, snakes tend to be homebodies. While their range might be large (relitivly speaking), they seldom leave it. When I was a kid, I observed a large, old Water Snake that lived in a stream near where my house was. He was there year after year, until I finally caught him. There was also a couple of others that I learned to recognize in the same place.
wishing luck,
f
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