Thermal reception in the Mexican Lance-head rattlesnake, Crotalus polystictus
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Zoology
- Keywords
- shape, distance, thermal stimuli, rattlesnakes, temperature
- Copyright
- © 2018 Martínez Vaca-León et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Thermal reception in the Mexican Lance-head rattlesnake, Crotalus polystictus. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26599v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26599v1
Abstract
The sensory systems of Boidae and Crotalinae snakes detect subtle differences of thermal infrared energy. The complexity of this ability involves neurophysiological mechanisms with interspecific differences in the anatomy of thermoreceptor organs and functionally in thermal detection ranges and thermal thresholds, with ecological correlations that influence the thermo-reception. However, little is known about the information these snakes obtain and use from infrared radiation. We analyzed the behavioral response of adult Mexican Lance-head Rattlesnakes (Crotalus polystictus) to static thermal stimuli, evaluating the influence of distance from the snake of the thermal stimuli, and its lizard-like or mouse-like shape. The results reveal that C. polystictus is able to detect static thermal stimuli located from 20 to 200 cm away. Head movements and tongue-flicks were the most frequently performed behaviors, which suggests they are behaviors that can facilitate the detection of subtle differences in temperature of static stimuli. In addition, we suggest that stimulus shape and temperature are important in the timing of head orientation and frequency of tongue-flicks. We discuss the possible methodological and sensory implications of this behavioral response in C. polystictus.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
