Spring 2016 – EYNC Rattlesnake Study

Emphasis now on hunting and shedding

Before I launch into what’s been going on with the Effie Yeaw rattlesnakes over the past few weeks, I want to pass on a link to a recent interview with Dr. Bree Putman. Bree was a grad student with Matt Holding (lead author of the journal article I linked to in my last post) in Emily Taylor’s lab at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo before she moved on to Rulon Clark’s lab at San Diego State to finish her Ph.D. In Bree’s interview (click here), she talks about ground squirrels and northern Pacific rattlesnakes and she describes some of the very intriguing behavioral questions many of us would love to answer.

Back to EYNC rattlesnakes –

This female California ground squirrel was clearly nursing pups on 26 April at Effie Yeaw Nature Center. — This female California ground squirrel was clearly nursing pups on 26 April in the Effie Yeaw Nature Center preserve.

I have not seen a courting pair of rattlesnakes since 28 April, when three rattlesnake pairs were found together in different locations. Male 37 was found with unmarked adults that were likely females on 11 and 14 May but no courtship was observed. But as the spring courtship season wound down, California ground squirrels began producing pups and the emphasis of both rattlesnake sexes turned to hunting.

After not finding a telemetered rattlesnake in or very near a ground squirrel burrow during the first 400+ observations this year, Male 46 was found in an ambush coil facing an active burrow a foot away on 9 May. In the five weeks since, several rattlesnakes have been found close to or inside squirrel burrows on several occasions.

At the same time, the snakes have also been hunting heavily in vole (aka: meadow mouse; Microtus californicus) tunnels in the grass.

Male 46 visible in a vole tunnel on the morning of 3 June 2016. Original RAW IMG_2192.CR2 — Male 46 uncovered (arrow) in a vole tunnel in the grass on the morning of 3 June. Although you cannot see it here, voles construct a maze of above-ground tunnels in thick dry grass that protects them from most predators… but not rattlesnakes. I hope you can appreciate just how impossible it would be to learn about the habits of these snakes without radiotelemetry!

And since about the end of May, the rattlesnakes – especially males – have been shedding.

Pre-shed Male 38 on 14 June 2016 Original RAW IMG_2320.CR2 — The rattle of pre-shed Male 38 under a log yesterday, 14 June. The new rattle segment forming in the base of the tail is whitish and covered by the last couple rows of scales. He is easily identified visually by red/green paint in his rattle.

Periodically shedding the corneal layer of the skin (called ecdysis; for more info, click here) takes snakes out of commission for a week or more and males seem to put it off during the spring mating season. It’s a bit like race car drivers waiting for a yellow caution flag to make a pit stop!

Even more interesting is that the rattlesnakes have favorite places where they go during this process and it is not uncommon to find several pre-shed individuals of both sexes together this time of year. Like hibernation, there seem to be many logs and burrows where they could shelter while waiting to shed but they congregate in just a few of them. Those of us who study rattlesnake behavior would love to know why. What is so special about certain locations? Or is it something else… like family ties or some other social interaction?

New research on ground squirrels’ resistance to rattlesnake venom

I have mentioned before that much research has been done on the interactions, both behavioral and biochemical, between Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus) and California Ground Squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi). And that research continues.

It started, so far as I know, with studies by UC Davis psychology professors Donald Owings and Richard Coss in the 1970’s, when they became interested in how California Ground Squirrels behaved when confronted by Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes. Several researchers have since spun off various aspects of the relationship between these two species, including Dr. Rulon Clark and his students at San Diego State University, who study the phenomenon from the rattlesnakes’ perspective. A common thread among these studies is that the adult squirrels are largely resistant to the rattlesnakes’ venom, often surviving with nothing but a nasty wound that eventually heals (although adult squirrels occasionally succumb, vividly illustrated by the photo accompanying the Washington Post article linked below).

But while adult ground squirrels seldom die from rattlesnake bites, their pups are much more vulnerable and the rattlesnakes hunt them intensely, starting about this time of year. I have linked a 60-second video made by Denise and I in July 2014 of our Male 36 (yes, the same one just recaptured after 20 months) preying on a ground squirrel pup while the pup’s mother tries to defend her offspring (Read original account here).

Tail-flagging and pushing grass at the snake are common behaviors by adult California Ground Squirrels when confronted by rattlesnakes. In this one-minute clip, the snake had already bitten a pup, which is laying in the grass and out of the frame at the start. The adult squirrel soon retreats to the stricken pup, which appears as a dark area in the grass. The adult squirrel’s attempts to deter the rattlesnake appear to work momentarily a couple of times as the snake turns away but almost immediately comes back toward the bitten pup. Near the end of the clip, the snake reaches the pup and bites it again. Although the pup runs out of the frame, it only makes it a few feet. The rattlesnake follows and swallows it a few minutes later. Excuse the background helicopter noise, as the fire department was conducting an operation in the river nearby. View the video here.

I bring this up now because my friend, videographer George Nyberg (who produced the very nice 2015 video of my rattlesnake study), has alerted me to a new Washington Post article on the biochemical “arms race” between Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes and California Ground Squirrels (view article). Thanks, George!

Matt Holding, whose research is the focus of the WP piece, is a former graduate student of another friend, Dr. Emily Taylor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Jim Biardi, second author on the new study, is a former member of the UC Davis group that originally studied ground squirrels and rattlesnakes.

The Washington Post does a nice job of describing how natural selection works: in short, there is always variation among individuals and some are better adapted than others to feed themselves (or avoid being eaten!) and those individuals tend to survive longer and produce more offspring, which carry the genes for those successful traits. Less successful traits are passed on less frequently (i.e., fewer offspring are produced). The peer-reviewed paper upon which the WP article is based was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (volume 283, issue 1829, April 2016). However, since this is not an open source journal, access to the complete manuscript is not easily available to the general public right away.

Male 36 finally recaptured!

If you have been following my rattlesnake study from the beginning, you know that we struggled through some faulty transmitters early in the project (search “failed transmitters” for previous info). The first six transmitters I implanted failed early. Several failed during hibernation (2014/15) and, because I knew where the snakes spent the winter, I was able to capture them when they began basking in the spring. Two, however, proved to be a bigger problem.

Male 36’s transmitter was first to fail in September 2014, with two months of activity remaining that season. Male 37’s transmitter lasted into the winter but he hibernated high on the bluff under a thick mat of vegetation, making his exact location very difficult to visit and impossible to pinpoint. Thus, both emerged in the spring of 2015 without functioning transmitters.

Both eluded recapture until October 2015, when I found Male 37 (details here) under the log I call “The Community Center” because everybody visits it from time to time. Males visit looking for girls, pregnant females hang out there to thermoregulate and give birth, and both sexes use it for shelter while waiting to shed (but nobody spends the winter there). I replaced Male 37’s transmitter then, leaving only Male 36 unaccounted for – until last week.

After twenty months, I had just about given up on finding Male 36 again. But when I checked around The Community Center one day last week, I was thrilled to spot his rattle with red/red paint! Like Male 37 last fall, Male 36 was also pre-shed and using The Community Center for shelter while he waited to complete the process.

Pre-shed Male 36, with failed transmitter, at Refuge 01, Effie Yeaw Nature Center, on 11 May 2016, moments before his recapture. Original RAW IMG_1531.CR2 — Pre-shed Male 36, with failed transmitter, at The Community Center on 11 May 2016, moments before his recapture. If you look closely (partly obscured by grass), you can make out the new light-colored rattle segment forming under the skin at the rattle base.

Just like Male 37, I captured Male 36 and kept him several days until he shed. His transmitter was replaced and he was released yesterday.

Male 36 disappearing into The Community Center yesterday with a new transmitter and re-marked rattle (his rattle is quite long and likely to break soon, potentially taking his original paint with it). Note how clean and crisp his pattern appears after shedding, compared to the photo above.

The return of Male 36 fills my permit quota of seven telemetered males. We currently have five females telemetered and I am holding out, hoping to get a couple of females radio-tagged farther out in the northeastern portion of the preserve where few of our current snakes venture. Interestingly, Male 38 was hanging around with two females out there last week, including last Saturday when I was hosting a video crew from UC Santa Cruz. While I would have loved to get a transmitter into one of them, they were too wary and repeatedly escaped when approached.

I wish more people could see just how hard these fascinating creatures try to avoid confrontations with people!

Interesting rattlesnake news

How well do rattlesnakes tolerate surgically-implanted transmitters?

As I have discussed before, there is a long (20+ years) history of telemetry studies of rattlesnakes in which individual animals tolerate the transmitters for years, enduring periodic surgeries to replace the radios. The animals thrive, repeatedly producing offspring and growing at the same rate as rattlesnakes without transmitters.

I bring this up because of a phone call last weekend from the landowner where I conducted my El Dorado County field study. He had just encountered the first Northern Pacific Rattlesnake I ever marked and telemetered, still identifiable by the yellow-over-yellow paint remaining in his rattle. He is now an exceptionally large male with twelve rattle segments – but in 2009, he was a young animal with a tapered unbroken rattle. He eventually endured four annual surgeries to implant and replace transmitters, followed by a fifth surgery in 2013 to remove his last radio.

Here is a PowerPoint slide of Male 01 — Here is a PowerPoint slide I use to illustrate how marking the rattles helps to judge growth and shedding frequency. The photos are of my Male #1. It also demonstrates how the rattle breaks over time. According to my friend, the 2011 paint is now just two segments from being lost but the snake is big, healthy, and thriving. You can see that, once the early tapered segments are gone, the rattle offers little insight into the age of the snake.

Male 01 being sighted alive and healthy is just more evidence that the surgical protocol and other study methods used by me and many of my rattlesnake-researcher colleagues is well tolerated by the animals we seek to learn more about.

Rattlesnake intelligence?

Despite my frequent admonition that we often tend to give rattlesnakes and similar animals too much credit for cognitive thought, friends at San Diego State University recently published some compelling evidence that rattlesnakes may learn from experience and apply those lessons to anticipate and mitigate problems during future similar circumstances. Bree Putman and Rulon Clark have spent years studying rattlesnake predation tactics by setting up video cameras on hunting rattlesnakes and recording their predatory encounters with small mammals. (This works because rattlesnakes are ambush hunters that sit still for long periods of time, waiting for prey to wander by.)

While reviewing 2000 hours of video, Bree and Rulon discovered two examples of rattlesnakes using their heads and necks to move foliage out of the way that might otherwise interfere with a strike when prey wanders close (click here for video). The animals involved were Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes – the same species as we have in the Sacramento area. Similar behavior has been reported a couple of times in the past, once involving a Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) and once involving an Arizona Blacktail Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus); both these incidents were witnessed by observers but not recorded.

Thus, evidence continues to accumulate that rattlesnakes are likely more social and maybe more intelligent than previously thought – although many habits are undoubtedly genetically programmed by natural selection. The new report by Putman and Clark is contained in the current issue of The Southwestern Naturalist (volume 60, number 4; December 2015).

For more interesting videos of natural predatory behavior by rattlesnakes, go to Rulon’s YouTube page.

Love is in the air

Rattlesnake love, that is!

I’ve been getting lots of questions after last night’s (17 April) KCRA News interview with a local “rattlesnake hunter” who makes his living keeping us all safe from rattlers. If you have been reading my blog, you know there is nothing new to be alarmed about. The last few hot days have not brought out the rattlesnakes. Indeed, general emergence from their winter dens occurred more than a month ago. Male rattlesnakes continue to be busy looking for and trying to mate with as many females as they can while the females hunt for mice, rats, and other prey. As sit-and-wait ambush predators, the females don’t move much and thus are seldom encountered by people. But the males have been and will continue to constantly search for females until late May or June, in the process turning up in yards and on trails and other places where they encounter people.

Once again, most bites can be avoided by watching where you put your unprotected hands and feet and leaving rattlesnakes alone when you encounter them.

We have been encountering numerous pairs of rattlesnakes in the Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve over the last few weeks. Here are brief video clips of a couple of examples: First, our telemetered Male 62 (blue/white paint in rattle), entwined with an unmarked female. These snakes were not moving during my brief visit but the males often accompany the females for many days but cannot keep courting them continuously (click here for video). You can see why in the video of Male 37 actively courting Female 41… it takes a lot of energy! (click here).

On 1 April, several hours after I videoed Male 37 courting Female 41, I returned and just missed a fight between two males over Female 41. As I approached, I briefly saw both males, with heads and necks high off the ground, twisted around one another. But one quickly fled, either from me or he had had enough of Male 37…who is a big healthy male rattlesnake! In any event, Male 37 was all excited and remained raised off the ground for a minute or more, guarding his girl (see photo below).

Male 37 still ready to fight shortly after another male retreated. Female 41 is coiled in the shade just below the male. I had videoed Male 37 courting Female 41 just a few hours before this scene. — Male 37 still ready to fight shortly after another male retreated. Female 41 is coiled in the shade just below the male. I had videoed Male 37 courting Female 41 at this spot just a few hours before this scene.

A video made a few years ago of two males fighting on the concrete in front of the Effie Yeaw Visitor Center doors is on the Nature Center website (or click here to see it).

Courtship has begun

Despite persistent cool mornings and alternating sunny and cloudy days, nine of eleven telemetered rattlesnakes have left their winter shelters and the remaining two have been basking regularly and will undoubtedly be on the move soon. We have also been finding plenty of new rattlesnakes basking and now have 27 animals processed and marked with colored paint in the rattles, in addition to the eleven with radios.

As I have already described, Female 41 was one of the first to leave her hibernation site and was soon joined by Male 49, a snake marked last season but not telemetered. Male 49 and Female 41 remained in close proximity at the same location from 16 February until 20 March and, although they were occasionally coiled in contact with one another, I never saw the male courting her. Male 49 followed when Female 41 moved more than 50 meters between 20 and 24 March but there has still been no witnessed courtship. However, the grass is very thick at their new location, making her hard to see and him impossible to spot if he’s not with her (and I don’t want to step on him… they’re very fragile!).

On 22 March, I came across Female 55, another animal processed last year and released without a transmitter, basking alone at the edge of a large log. But when I returned on 24 March, she had company: an unmarked (no paint in the rattle) male on top of her, jerking, chin-rubbing, and tongue-flicking – typical courtship behavior (you can view a 2015 clip of Female 41 with another male here).

Female 55 basking alone in the afternoon sun on 22 March 2016. Note her rattle with red over yellow paint, visible through the grass on the left side of the photo. Without a radio, she had not been seen since June of last year.

type here — Then two days later, on 24 March, Female 55 is almost completely hidden by a new male on top of her; you can see his unmarked rattle in the middle foreground of the photo. Although the male is distracted by me in this picture, he had been vigorously courting the female just moments before. Unfortunately, the video camera auto-focused on the grass, making the resulting image unusable. Courtship continued at this location for at least three days but they were gone on 29 March, replaced by Male 35, who was enjoying the sun by himself yesterday afternoon. Although he would retreat under the log when I approached closely, he would re-emerge within minutes as soon as I backed away.

We can expect the females to hunt for the next two-to-three months, after which pregnant females will retreat to their favorite gestation shelters to thermoregulate until their kids are born around the first of September. Non-pregnant females will continue to hunt through the summer. Males will spend most of their time looking for receptive females until late May/early June, after which they, too, will hunt full-time for voles and ground squirrel pups until courtship resumes in late summer.

General emergence appears to be underway (after a couple of false starts)

After a couple of false starts during warm periods in mid and late February, a new series of cool storms kept the Effie Yeaw Nature Center rattlesnakes immobile through the first half of March. On days with a little sunshine, both telemetered and other rattlesnakes were frequently found basking at the entrance to their shelters but they did not venture away from them. Natural selection tends to remove animals from the gene pool that wander too early and get caught in a late-season freeze. As if to demonstrate that it was cool temperature and not the rain that was keeping them inactive, several rattlesnakes were found lying out in the rain on days when the temperature was in the high 60s, despite the clouds.

Male 49 lying in the rain on 4 March 2016. Rattlesnakes are very adept at harvesting rain and dew, being very capable of sucking individual droplets off of vegetation or their own bodies. While that will drink from standing water when available, they don't seem to need such water sources and we have not detected tham traveling to either the ponds near the Nature Center or to the river. — Male 49 lying in the rain on 4 March 2016. Rattlesnakes are very adept at harvesting rain and dew, being able to suck individual droplets off of vegetation and their own bodies. While they will drink from standing water when available, they don’t seem to need such water sources and we have not detected them traveling to either the ponds near the Visitor Center or to the river. The only rattlesnakes discovered over the past two seasons around the Visitor Center (and its water sources) have been males during the breeding season – presumably looking for females, not water.

While the rattlesnakes continued to bask on sunny days, none of the telemetered animals moved between 29 February and 17 March. Then today, I discovered that 7 of the 9 telemetered rattlesnakes had left their shelters and moved significant distances in the past two days.

I haven’t seen courtship yet. Female 41 and Male 49 hung out together for a month (16 February through 15 March) but they were only rarely touching one another and were usually coiled a couple of feet apart with no courtship observed. She is now hunting several dozen yards away and Male 49, without a transmitter, has disappeared.

The important message, however, is that rattlesnakes are on the move and encounters between people and rattlesnakes will increase immediately. Unfortunately, I have already seen photos of a rattlesnake bite from a few days ago in the foothills. Watching carefully where you put your hands and unprotected feet and leaving snakes alone when you encounter them would prevent almost all bites. If you must walk in vegetation or rocks where you cannot be sure what you’re stepping on, wear high-top shoes or boots that cover your feet and ankles. Of course, boots that cover some of your calf are better but most accidental snakebites (where the person is not intentionally interacting with the snake) are to the ankle and below.

Remember, you can’t save all the cute animals, eat all the tasty ones, kill all the ones that scare you, and have a functional ecosystem, too!

The 2016 rattlesnake season is underway

After some limited basking by a couple of telemetered rattlesnakes and short movements by Female 41 and Male 49 two weeks ago, the return of cool cloudy weather sent these animals underground again. Then, despite several days of sunny weather last week, the rattlesnakes remained cool and out of sight – with the exception of Male 49. While Female 41 stayed underground and cold, he napped most afternoons in the sun just a couple feet away.

But yesterday, everything changed. Males 37 and 38 who spent the winter near the top of the bluff had moved down; one was out of sight under a log and the other was in an ambush coil in the grass under a small fig tree.

CROR38, first sighting of the year; 29 February 2016 Original RAW IMG_0195.CR2 — My first look at Male 38 this year. He appeared to be hunting at the base of the bluff, just a few dozen yards from where he spent the winter on the hillside.

A rapidly pulsing transmitter told me before I arrived that my underweight geriatric Male 40 had survived another winter and was in the sun at his winter shelter.

CROR60 at RFG02, first 2016 sighting; 29 February 2016; Effie Yeaw Nature Center Original RAW IMG_0177.CR2 — My old friend, Male 40, made it through another winter. Over two seasons, he has moved very little and I have never found him courting a female. This is my first look at him this year. He had a body temperature of 88F when this photo was taken. Although he may have had more surface area exposed to the sun before I arrived, it takes very little exposed skin to dramatically raise their body temperature on a sunny windless day.

Non-telemetered Male 49 (foreground) and telemetered Female 41 (background) — Male 49 (foreground, no transmitter) and telemetered Female 41 (background). Female 41 was underground with a body temperature of 52F on Sunday but had a body temp of 86F when this photo was taken yesterday (24 hours later).

Female 41 was in the sun with Male 49 laying partly on top of her, although I saw no active courtship during my brief visit.

Other telemetered snakes had moved short distances but were out of sight when I was there yesterday. But in my travels, I also sighted five unmarked rattlesnakes basking, including a beautiful little female sporting a food bolus about the size of a vole – so she has already fed successfully.

So for the next three months or so, females will be trying to eat as much as they can to nourish their next brood while males will be wandering all over the place (and hunting less) in search of receptive females. It is during this time that male rattlesnakes tend to turn up in yards and on trails, producing interactions with people.

Remember that rattlesnakes want nothing to do with something the size of a person. Leave them alone and they will be happy to avoid you, too!