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Nature_and_Environment.102 |
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Evolution: Pitviper Scavenging ... |
{Nature_and_Environment.102.1}: {bshmr} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:55:57 CST (17 lines)
I think of pit-vipers as needing their poison to immobilize live prey, not as scavenger. I wonder about the scope of the conjecture. BioScience tip sheet, November 2008 A listing of peer-reviewed articles from the issue The complete list of research articles in the November 2008 issue of BioScience is as follows: ... Pitviper Scavenging at the Intertidal Zone: An Evolutionary Scenario for Invasion of the Sea. Harvey B. Lillywhite, Coleman M. Sheehy III, and Frederic Zaidan III. Florida cottonmouth snakes that inhabit gulf coast islands feed on dead fish and intertidal carrion, occasionally entering the sea. The snakes suggest a model for how terrestrial vertebrates may have taken up marine existence. ...
{Nature_and_Environment.102.2}: Tonu Aun {tonu} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:54:05 CST (14 lines)
Several points Richard -- thanx for this. Elsewhere and elsewhen I've mentioned my interest in snakes. From ten to thirteen I honestly can claim I read everything available in the Chicago Public Library system on snakes. I was a kid in a candy store once I received access into the UofC stacks. Possibly I was precocious but more likely REALLY obsessed ;-) All snakes are opportunistic to varying degree. Most venomous snakes only eat their prey once they have killed it. Eating dead prey is what?:-)--- guess that means we humans are scavengers :-) More seriously I'd want to know if Cottonmouths eat mostly found dead stuff.... that would be a new fact I'm unaware of.
{Nature_and_Environment.102.3}: James Files {riverrat} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:49:17 CST (3 lines)
I remember catching a catfish, having it flip of my hook and start rolling down the bank. I started following it down to be met by a cottonmouth. I retreated as it swallowed the fish.
{Nature_and_Environment.102.4}: {bshmr} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:36:37 CST (10 lines)
Snakes sense infra-red and odors, IIRC. So, I have difficulty seeing both hunting and scavenging in contrast to raptors which are visual .... Besides, cottonmouths are deadly poisonous -- more so than rattlers or copperheads, again IIRC. NTYC: Somewhere I have a photo of a snake drinking within a foot of a frog. The snake flicked its tongue, caught the sense, focused, and the frog hopped across the five-foot deep pool.
{Nature_and_Environment.102.5}: Tonu Aun {tonu} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:11:22 CST (HTML)
The infra-red and odors are important.
What we consider raptors is also slanted --- the Bald Eagle for
example is almost exclusively a carrion eater. (Tell me if I'm wrong
on this Richard since I know you know birds far better)
{Nature_and_Environment.102.6}: James Files {riverrat} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:39:24 CST (4 lines)
Tonu. I know that during the Salmon runs they are almost exclusively adventitious, not predatory. According to Ben Franklin they are cowardly eaters of carrion, unlike the noble turkey.
{Nature_and_Environment.102.7}: {bshmr} Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:42:37 CST (9 lines)
Bald eagles are primarily carrion feeders, again this is based on visual identification of food -- a dead fish LOOKS like a live one, a dead (non-flattened) rabbit looks like a rabbit, etc. [ Golden eagles are considered 'hunters', IIRC. ] Few bird species sense odors; and, their visual recognition abilities of inanimate and stationary objects amaze me. Oh, Tonu, without reference book(s), I 'suck' at birds.
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