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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de La Playa
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Oct 30, 2013 - 11:42pm PT
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Would like to see one of those researchers wired up for some snake experiments...
God said to Abraham, kill me a son
Abe says, man, you must be puttin me on
God Says, no
Abe say, what?
You do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me coming
YOU BEWTTER RUN
These aren't no mf'ing beanies these boys are wearing. We ake up in the morning fold our hand and pray for rain.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Oct 31, 2013 - 01:23am PT
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This one was cold and did not want to deal with us.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Oct 31, 2013 - 09:41am PT
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As a kid I loved lizards and frogs and snakes don't bother me. I lived with a herpatologist who specialized in rattlesnakes for
3 years. He was constantly bringing them home.
Bugs on the other hand... eek.
@Batrock.. that snake looks like it ate more than one rabbit.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Oct 31, 2013 - 11:32am PT
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On a related note:
http://io9.com/monkeys-remember-words-used-by-their-ancestors-centur-1453241140
In the mid-1600s, green monkeys from Africa were introduced to the West Indies island of Barbados. Despite living a predator-free life for centuries, the Barbados population still responds to an ancestral alarm call that means, roughly translated, “Run up a tree or a leopard will eat you!”
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Jan 29, 2014 - 03:06pm PT
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Hundreds of snakes discovered inside foul-smelling Santa Ana home
By Ruben Vives
January 29, 2014, 9:15 a.m.
Police serving a search warrant at a home in Santa Ana on Wednesday discovered as many as 400 snakes inside.
Officers served the search warrant at the home in the 2900 block of Fernwood Drive after the Police Department’s animal services section received complaints from neighbors about a foul odor coming from the home.
Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said about 300 to 400 pythons were discovered inside. Some of the pythons were alive, some dead and decaying.
The man is a teacher at an elementary school in Newport Beach, KTLA reported.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-hundreds-snakes-santa-ana-home-20140129,0,211498.story
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labrat
Trad climber
Auburn, CA
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Jan 29, 2014 - 03:15pm PT
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The man is a teacher at an elementary school in Newport Beach?????
Maybe it's a good thing I moved away.
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L
climber
California dreamin' on the farside of the world..
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Jan 29, 2014 - 05:16pm PT
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"The man, whose name was not immediately released, was taken into custody on suspicion of various felonies, including animal cruelty charges."
And an elementary school teacher...sheesh. What a sick individual.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Jan 29, 2014 - 05:58pm PT
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Along the banks of the New River in the New River Gorge
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jan 29, 2014 - 06:03pm PT
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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Jan 29, 2014 - 07:59pm PT
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Anita514, that looks to be a Juvenal Black Rat Snake. A very common constrictor in the area.
TY
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 23, 2014 - 10:56am PT
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Whidbey Island Garter Snake.
( ink pen for scale )
I don't know how he got in, but I'm glad I found him before one of my mother's cats did.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Aug 23, 2014 - 11:08am PT
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That's a cool little snake.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Aug 23, 2014 - 11:19am PT
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ran into this guy a couple years ago at Devils Tower.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Aug 23, 2014 - 02:12pm PT
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The results, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appear to support a theory that early primates developed advanced perception as an evolutionary response to being prey, not as an adaptation that may have made foraging or hunting easier.
This is either just pure distilled BS, exaggerated for the purpose of getting attention/citations/links, or just plain poor evolutionary biology. Though the linked video shows an arboreal snake lunching on a howler monkey, the theory would only be "supported" if they also present data showing that snake predation is a significant source of mortality of monkeys; specifically, a greater source of mortality than the combination of mortality from a venonous snake bite, mortality from failing to stick the jump from one branch to another, mortality from all other perception-related activities (such as conflict with other monkeys), proportional reduction in fecundity that would result from poorer visual perceptive abilities, etc. etc. etc. Which it almost certainly is not: if you spend time in tropical forests, including in the canopy, you will observe that there aren't really very many snakes up in the canopy where monkeys remain virtually 100 percent of the time that are large enough to eat monkeys, even juvenile ones. On the other hand, there ARE plenty of venomous tree snakes (a big advantage if you prey on birds, which are lost meals if they don't succumb quickly). And they're really cryptic up there, and easily interacted with inadvertantly.
Great visual perception, specifically pattern recognition at which primates excell confers many advantages in terms of obtaining food, recognizing individual clan-mates and thus avoiding conflicts, recognizing venomous creatures (probably very important for monkeys), and finally recognizing predators. But with respect to snakes, the last is almost certainly just not very important. Why do so-called evolutionary biologists insist on simplifying the evolution of a complex system to just one driver? They ought to know that it's way more complex and nuanced than that. If they're going to purport to provide an explanation, then give the whole ecological-evolutionary picture, not just one set of neurobiological data (interesting though it is).
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Aug 24, 2014 - 10:28am PT
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L-
That Timber Rattlesnake in your photograph didn't rattle at you because---it's a Copperhead. At least that's what I think you came across, judging from the coloration. I saw lots of these in Missouri as a kid.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 11:13am PT
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I saw Harry Greene give a fantastic talk this summer (in the Parsons Lodge in Tuolumne of all places), and he talked at length about our evolutionary past as prey, predators, and competitors of snakes. Fascinating stuff, and it's no wonder that snakes seem to draw strong reactions from deep down in our little monkey brains.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/12/06/1115116108
"Abstract
Relationships between primates and snakes are of widespread interest from anthropological, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, but surprisingly, little is known about the dangers that serpents have posed to people with prehistoric lifestyles and nonhuman primates. Here, we report ethnographic observations of 120 Philippine Agta Negritos when they were still preliterate hunter–gatherers, among whom 26% of adult males had survived predation attempts by reticulated pythons. Six fatal attacks occurred between 1934 and 1973. Agta ate pythons as well as deer, wild pigs, and monkeys, which are also eaten by pythons, and therefore, the two species were reciprocally prey, predators, and potential competitors. Natural history data document snake predation on tree shrews and 26 species of nonhuman primates as well as many species of primates approaching, mobbing, killing, and sometimes eating snakes. These findings, interpreted within the context of snake and primate phylogenies, corroborate the hypothesis that complex ecological interactions have long characterized our shared evolutionary history."
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 09:13pm PT
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Wow, that's a really stellar paper, Willoughby. It had in it exactly what I was lamenting the other one didn't: a consideration of all the factors in human-snake interactions (including predation both directions and competition for other prey species). Really interestingly, the interviewers found that some other plausible sources of mortality, specifically venomous snake bites and murder by Japanese soldiers during WW2, were not mentioned at all in the interview responses. So, in that habitat (Philippines), pythons are a significant source of adult male mortality for forest dwelling people; even more so before they had metal weapons for defense.
In the seasonal and dry parts of Africa, however, where pre-human and early human evolution occurred, I don't imagine it's the same. Place is lousy with venomous snakes, but not big constrictors. Anyway, it's an interesting topic and it's great to see that someone researched it in a novel and revealing way, concluding that it's pretty darn complex after all. Would have loved to have seen that talk.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 09:19pm PT
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Well, at least if a Reticulated nabs you it will be over in a minute or so
as compared to hours of misery if a Russel's or a Krait zaps you.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Aug 24, 2014 - 11:57pm PT
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I think snakes are beautiful, but I do not like to be near them.
The snakes we really should be wary of are those in politics, and civil service and used car lots.
EDIT
Okay, that was unfair of me, there are some decent politicians and public servants, but used car salespeople, yowsi. Caveat emptor.
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