DO COTTONMOUTHS (AGKISTRODON PISCIVORUS) HABITUATE TO HUMAN CONFRONTATIONS?
XAVIER GLAUDAS
ABSTRACT -The defensive behavior of snakes towards humans
has been well documented. Ironically, many of these early studies focused
on harmless colubrid species. Knowledge of venomous snake defensive behavior
is limited, and further research is necessary to understand how pitvipers
react to human confrontations. I performed laboratory tests daily over
a period of five days to investigate whether cottonmouths would habituate
to handling. Eleven days after the last habituation test, snakes were
tested again to see if cottonmouths show a recovery responser Cottonmouths
exhibited a significant change in defensive behavior between Day 1 and
Day 5 of the experiment. However, they did not significantly revert to
their original behavior 11 days later.
SREL Reprint #2781
Glaudas, X. 2004. Do cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus) habituate to human confrontations? Southeastern Naturalist 3:129-138.
