Snake Catching and Handling - Science topic

Artificial retreats :)

In some African countries such as Tanzania, Sierra Leone extract made from the roots of Datura metel is sprinkled in houses to repel snakes.

https://www.prota4u.org/database/protav8.asp?&g=pe&p=Datura+metel+L.

Hi Aaron - 

(1) See my chapter on social behavior of rattlesnakes (2016) at my Research Gate site. I can send you a PDF (gwschuett@yahoo.com). 

(2) See new research by Shannon Hoss (references in my chapter  

Cheers, Gordon

Yes, electroshock can be used to stun snakes, amphibians, turtles, and aquatic mammals (beaver and muskrats).  I have also demonstrated that electroshock can kill zebra mussels under controlled experiments.  I have also used electroshock to harass ducks and geese from undesired areas. 

Use some food material as attractor surrounding the repellent sample and measure the distance up to which the subject (here snake) is attracted by the attractor aginst the presence of the repellent. 

Hopes it help you.

 Cheers for the paper Leon, I'll be sure to have a read of this one I appreciate your advice!

If possible you could try stomach content (See Mushinsky et al., 1982 in the attachments).This would give data on prey species and might show different food sources at different life stages.

I don't know what kind of data you are going to collect, but foraging patterns (and moving patterns anyway) would be interesting to take a look at. This data can be analysed in many ways. However, this might have to involve sticking transmitters on the snakes.

A last thing I can find right now is habitat use (see shine et al., 2003 for an example on this).

This seems like a very interesting and unique species to research! I hope this helped a little bit, and good luck!

With PIT Tagging, the tags themselves are relatively inexpensive but the reader is costly. Unfortunately, the PIT tag needs to be within a few inches of the reader to be detected, so PIT tags aren't generally used for tracking movement so much as verifying when a tagged specimen moved past a set area. PIT tags are just another marking method that can be used to verify the cauterization, if the cauterization mark fades (on that note, a poorly placed PIT tag can be shed by a snake, and not all snakes are large enough to get PIT tagged).

If you are looking at tracking movement, the method that I am aware of would require the surgical implant of a radio transmitter. This has been used in the Central Valley of CA to track movement of Giant Gartersnakes, which uses aquatic habitat (rice fields and wetlands). I attached a link to the work that USGS has done on radio tagging GGS, I hope that helps!

Thanks, Luke. You might want to email me at ijamall@riskbaseddecisions.com with your contact info so we can discuss the specifics confidentially. Thank you. Ijaz

Hola Nina.

Te reenvío la respuesta del Dr. Alberto González, investigador titular del INECOL, con quien colaboro, y que tiene experiencia con serpientes cautivas:

"Hola Rolando:

Mira efectivamente liberé 14 neonatos de Crotalus scutulatus salvini de Perote, pero he criado otros neonatos de crotalus y lo que les he dado y han aceptado sin dificultad, son los ratones primero Pinkis a las especies pequeñas y ratones casi formados a las grandes, incluso a una C. simus que me llego de unos días de nacida, le dábamos ratones juveniles ya medianitos. No conozco esta especie, pero si es similar en tamaño a las que tenemos por acá, los ratones son excelentes para alimentar a los neonatos.

Creo que hay mucha literatura al respecto tanto de trabajos científicos como de publicaciones de terrarios y su manejo. Si quieres escríbele esto, y si quieres dale mi correo como sea.

Saludos,

Alberto."

Su correo es alberto.gonzalez@inecol.mx

Espero te sirva esta información, y disculpa por contestarte en español, pero me pareció mas rápido. Saludos.

Rolando González

Técnico Titular

Red Biología y Conservación de Vertebrados

Instituto de Ecología, A.C.

Xalapa, Ver.

Dear Darasingh;

I think that you are providing the answer in your question; if you deal with snake species that do not show a visible sexual dimorphism, then the answer is: no, you won’t be able to know the sex without catching the individual. Some species do show sexual dimorphism, more or less visible, like different body proportions (thicker tail base, etc.) or color (look for example at the recent description of the pitviper Trimeresurus phuketensis, available on RG, where males and females show different coloration), etc. But what is your main reason for not catching the snake to check its sex? If you intend to perform a study where it is important to know the sex of each individual, then you should definitely work on a species with an apparent sexual dimorphism or catch the individuals. I would also like to stress that in tropical areas where snake diversity is high, with similar looking species living in syntopy, not catching the individuals might also lead to species misidentifications.