M
MrBredli
Guest
Snakes taking care of the little things
Sun 18 Sep 2005
Source: Reuters
They are powerful predators that constrict their prey, but female African pythons also have a maternal side unheard of among egg laying snakes - they spend time with their young after they hatch.
Graham Alexander, a biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, says the discovery underscores how little we know about the world of snakes and suggests their ways may be far more elaborate than scientists previously thought.
"I had reports from farmers that they had seen baby snakes and their mothers out together and I thought this is crazy," Dr Alexander said.
But in 2003 he did intensive observations on two female African pythons - commonly known as rock pythons - and to his astonishment he found they spent up to two weeks with their offspring after hatching.
Such behaviour has been observed in some snake species that give live birth but never in egg layers.
In the reptile kingdom, crocodiles and some lizards are the only other species known to offer parental care.
Caring mothers?
Rock pythons are not exactly the most caring of mothers, though the time they spend with their offspring seems to confer some benefit to them.
"When a human approaches the mother disappears down a hole, abandoning her young," Dr Alexander said.
His theory is that the mother keeps the babies warm at night, enabling them to digest the burdensome egg yolks they hatch with.
"When the babies hatch, they can hardly crawl because they are so full of egg yolk," he said.
"My data suggests that the female coils around the empty eggs and the babies sit on top of the eggs. Staying warm at night means that the egg yolk is digested much faster."
He says the obvious benefit to the young from this is that they become mobile more quickly.
"This shows that behaviour in snakes is more complex than we previously thought," Dr Alexander said.
He says it also highlights our general ignorance of snakes, predators which send shivers up the spines of many people but play key roles in numerous ecosystems.
"We don't have a measure of abundance or population density of a single snake in Africa. We need that information to make well founded decisions about how threatened species are and we don't have it ... it's a big conservation need," he said.
The southern African python can grow to five metres and weigh over 50 kilograms.
While they are by far the largest snake in the region, they are generally not regarded as maneaters.
- Reuters
From here: http://www.bigpond.com/news/cont/news_Cconmap_C164689.html
Sun 18 Sep 2005
Source: Reuters
They are powerful predators that constrict their prey, but female African pythons also have a maternal side unheard of among egg laying snakes - they spend time with their young after they hatch.
Graham Alexander, a biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, says the discovery underscores how little we know about the world of snakes and suggests their ways may be far more elaborate than scientists previously thought.
"I had reports from farmers that they had seen baby snakes and their mothers out together and I thought this is crazy," Dr Alexander said.
But in 2003 he did intensive observations on two female African pythons - commonly known as rock pythons - and to his astonishment he found they spent up to two weeks with their offspring after hatching.
Such behaviour has been observed in some snake species that give live birth but never in egg layers.
In the reptile kingdom, crocodiles and some lizards are the only other species known to offer parental care.
Caring mothers?
Rock pythons are not exactly the most caring of mothers, though the time they spend with their offspring seems to confer some benefit to them.
"When a human approaches the mother disappears down a hole, abandoning her young," Dr Alexander said.
His theory is that the mother keeps the babies warm at night, enabling them to digest the burdensome egg yolks they hatch with.
"When the babies hatch, they can hardly crawl because they are so full of egg yolk," he said.
"My data suggests that the female coils around the empty eggs and the babies sit on top of the eggs. Staying warm at night means that the egg yolk is digested much faster."
He says the obvious benefit to the young from this is that they become mobile more quickly.
"This shows that behaviour in snakes is more complex than we previously thought," Dr Alexander said.
He says it also highlights our general ignorance of snakes, predators which send shivers up the spines of many people but play key roles in numerous ecosystems.
"We don't have a measure of abundance or population density of a single snake in Africa. We need that information to make well founded decisions about how threatened species are and we don't have it ... it's a big conservation need," he said.
The southern African python can grow to five metres and weigh over 50 kilograms.
While they are by far the largest snake in the region, they are generally not regarded as maneaters.
- Reuters
From here: http://www.bigpond.com/news/cont/news_Cconmap_C164689.html
