Lutterschmidt William I, Perelman Zander E, Roth Eric D, Weidler J M
Department of Biological Sciences, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77340, USA.
Illinois Natural History Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
Integr Org Biol. 2024 Nov 8;6(1):obae040. doi: 10.1093/iob/obae040. eCollection 2024.
Chemoreception and recognition of specific prey are important sensory modalities for optimizing foraging success in snakes. Field observations suggest that cottonmouths are generalists, despite the specific epithet of the species () suggesting a fish prey preference. Because chemo-recognition of specific prey may reveal interesting evolutionary context for foraging strategy and if prey preference is either genetically or environmentally controlled, we investigated the prey cue preference of three experimental groups of (Northern Cottonmouths) with different diet histories. Two groups of captive snakes were acclimated to year-long diets of either fish ( = 11) or mice ( = 9) and a third group of recently wild-caught individuals served as a field diet group ( = 16). We investigated possible differences among diet history (fish, mouse, and field) and prey cue preference (control, fish, and mouse) and present results showing a significant difference among diet history with field snakes having significantly lower tongue-flick response. We also found a significant difference among prey cues, snakes within all diet histories showed a lower tongue-flick response to only the control scent cue. Both captive and field snakes showed no prey cue preference for either fish or mice. Because captive snakes did not show increased prey cue preference to their respective diet history, prey preference may be under genetic influence and not experience-based. Additionally, the lack of prey preference for fish or mice in the recently captured snakes in the field-diet group provides supporting evidence that are generalists and opportunistic predators.
化学感受和对特定猎物的识别是蛇类优化觅食成功率的重要感官方式。野外观察表明，水腹蛇是多食性动物，尽管该物种的种本名（）表明其偏好鱼类猎物。由于对特定猎物的化学识别可能揭示觅食策略有趣的进化背景，并且猎物偏好是受基因控制还是环境控制，我们调查了三组具有不同饮食历史的佛罗里达水腹蛇（北部水腹蛇）的猎物线索偏好。两组圈养蛇分别适应了为期一年的鱼类（n = 11）或小鼠（n = 9）饮食，第三组是最近野外捕获的个体，作为野外饮食组（n = 16）。我们研究了饮食历史（鱼类、小鼠和野外）和猎物线索偏好（对照、鱼类和小鼠）之间可能存在的差异，并呈现的结果表明饮食历史之间存在显著差异，野外蛇的吐舌反应明显较低。我们还发现猎物线索之间存在显著差异，所有饮食历史的蛇对仅对照气味线索的吐舌反应较低。圈养蛇和野外蛇对鱼类或小鼠均无猎物线索偏好。由于圈养蛇对其各自的饮食历史没有表现出增加的猎物线索偏好，猎物偏好可能受基因影响而非基于经验。此外，野外饮食组中最近捕获的蛇对鱼类或小鼠缺乏猎物偏好，这提供了支持性证据，表明水腹蛇是多食性和机会主义捕食者。
