What was your first impression when you mentioned snakes? Morder feelings? loner? No friends? No, the stereotype of snake = indifference should have been broken long ago, and the social world of the snake represented by the snake is not to mention how wonderful it is!
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHELLE GILDERS, ALAMY
Eastern banded snake
Banded snakes are non-venomous and can be seen from the cold plains of Canada to the forests of Costa Rica. This snake has a clear preference for which snakes to stay with. In other words, they have "friends."
"All animals need to interact with others, even snakes," said Morgan Skinner, a study leader and a phD student in behavioral ecology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. To study this theory, Skinner designed a new experiment to assess the personality and social abilities of the Eastern Banded Snake.
The findings, published in Behavioral Ecology and Social Biology, says Skinner, "like us, they seek to socialise and are picky about who they interact with."
Snakes also have close friends? This idea may have come as a surprise to us, but in fact, a growing body of research has found that this relationship is widespread in the animal kingdom, from flamingos to bats to elephants. For example, a study of vampire bats showed that bats, like humans, build conditional friendships.
PHOTOGRAPH BY KLAUS NIGGE, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
flamingo
Scientists may be better at discovering friendships between animals than they did 30 years ago, in part because many social organizations have become more receptive to the idea and researchers have better equipment to collect and analyze data.
The study's co-author, comparative psychologist and Skinner mentor Noam Miller, said we "have made tremendous strides over the past few decades" in analyzing the social networks of wild animals such as snakes.
In fact, as research in this area has progressed, scientists now often use the word "friend" when discussing this relationship between non-human animals.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PAMELA GINDLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
Eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake
In 2012, however, that wasn't the case, said Melissa Amarello, a herpetologist and head of the Snake Conservation Initiative. In a paper on the tight entanglement of black rattlesnakes, she was advised not to use the word "friend."
For the study, Miller and Skinner looked at 40 juvenile eastern banded snakes, 30 of which were born of female snakes caught in the wild and 10 of which were a litter of snakes purchased from keepers.
To track down the reptiles, Skinner drew a non-toxic colored dot on the head of each banded snake. In the lab, he mixed males and females in groups of 10 banded snakes in an enclosed space enclosed on all sides and placed on a table, with 4 plastic sheds with small entrances. Since there were only 4 plastic sheds, the 10 banded snakes had to form small groups.
For 8 days, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., a camera recorded images of the test area every 5 seconds, tracking the movement of the snake. Skinner also takes pictures of these banded snakes and their small groups twice a day. He then removed the snake, cleaned the test area to eliminate the odor, and put the snake back in a different place, but in a different place.
PHOTOGRAPH FROM ANIMALIA
However, these strappy snakes have their own ideas. Instead of staying where Skinner placed them, they returned to their small group of 3 to 8 snakes and stayed together in a small plastic shed. What's more, they found specific snakes that they had previously been with.
"They have mature social cognitive abilities," Miller says, "and they can distinguish between other snakes." ”
The scientists also tested the personality of snakes, that is, whether they were "shy" or "bold," two of the main traits that evaluate wild animals. To see if the banded snake was bold, they left the snake alone in a plastic shed.
PHOTOGRAPH FROM OAKLAND COUNTY BLOG
Shy banded snakes tend to stay where they are, rarely venturing into larger spaces, while daring banded snakes act like explorers, often quickly leaving plastic sheds and snaking around in new habitats.
However, once they live in groups, this personality difference disappears. These banded snakes usually move in groups, which may be a strategy for their safety in the wild.
Of course, since this experiment was conducted in a captive environment, there are certain limitations. "Animals behave differently in captivity, so I wanted to know how they behave under natural conditions," Amarello said.
However, because wild banded snakes also form groups similar to those in the lab, Miller and Skinner speculate that this relationship between them also occurs in nature, which is common in many reptiles.
Despite the frequent news of animals making friends, Miller warns that the reasons for developing friendships between animals "may be quite different from the reasons humans make friends."
In fact, scientists don't know the motives of banded snakes, they just know that it has nothing to do with reproduction and mating: studies have shown that snakes don't like to make friends with the opposite sex.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM GANTERT
Snakes that come together
But such partnerships must bring certain benefits, otherwise they would not have wasted energy coming together. For example, snakes often curl up with their friends, which helps them stay warm and fend off predators.
Whatever the reason, gordon Burghardt, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Tennessee, said, the study "helps convince people that snakes aren't all mysterious loners, and that their social abilities are beyond what most people think." ”
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