Herps in the news: Robosquirrel fools rattlesnake

The article I chose to read for my final blog was about a Ph. D candidate at UC-Berkeley's research on the relationship between the native squirrels of the area and the rattlesnakes in an attempt to gain a better understanding of predator- prey relationships in general. Native squirrels are known to exhibit certain behaviors in the presence of the snakes. One mentioned in the article is a wide legged stance with the squirrels tail in the air. This is an attempt to make the squirrel look large in front of the rattlesnake because the snakes use infared for sight. When the squirrel has it's tail up in the "flagging" position, it also heats it's tail up which generate a larger object to the snake. Adult squirrels in the area are resistant to the rattlesnake bites as well, however, adults rarely get bitten by the snakes because they are extremely fast and aware of their surroundings and predators.

The California Ground Squirrel is the prey species being studied in the article

To study the predator- prey interactions between the squirrels and the rattlesnakes, the researchers use robosquirrel. Robosquirrel is a taxidermist's shell stuffed with a motor that wags the squirrels tail, a heating coil in the body that simulates body temperature and a heating rod in the tail to simulate the squirrel's behavior of put it's tail in the air and heating it up to trick the rattlesnakes. The squirrel sits on a box that hold all the necessary electronic parts to keep the squirrel going. The squirrel itself doesn't move on it's own. It uses a specially designed track that moves in towards the waiting rattlesnakes. Another interesting thing about robosquirrel is that the research team wanted to make sure it smelled like a squirrel so it is kept in the old cage bedding of ground squirrels in the laboratory. One thing to notes about the robot squirrel is that it always gets bit, unlike the live squirrels it is meant to represent.

Robosquirrel is used to collect data on the predator-prey interactions of squirrels and rattlesnakes.

So far the research has shown that the snakes are really not as aggressive as people believe. So far they have found that the riskiest thing a person can do is step on them, besides that the snakes tend to flee. The snakes also play an important role in controlling the rodent numbers in the area. Though as mentioned earlier, the snakes rarely get the resistant adult squirrels, they frequently get the baby squirrels who are not resistant to the snake's venom.

Tagging a rattlesnake in one of the areas of research

Not only is some of the data they have been finding important for understanding predator prey interactions, but also some of the results they have found could help to stop the bad name rattlesnakes are getting. Though the rattlesnakes are dangerous, it is mentioned in the article that in the area they are researching in California, the snakes are nearly gone except for in reserves because people kill all of them. Maybe research like this can show people that the snakes are dangerous but aren't attacking people as much or as aggressively as people may think. This article was very interesting and it is cool to learn about the different types of research going on with herps.

Link to the article: http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_20367300/robosquirrel-fools-rattlesnake