Studies of food relations are important to our understanding of ecology at the individual, population and community levels. Detailed documentation of the diet of large-bodied, widespread snakes allows us to assess size-dependent and geographical variation in feeding preferences of gape-limited predators. Furthermore, with knowledge of the food habits of sympatric taxa we can explore possible causes of interspecific differences in trophic niches. The feeding ecology of the North American gopher snake, Pituophis catenifer, was studied based on the stomach contents of more than 2600 preserved and free-ranging specimens, and published and unpublished dietary records. Of 1066 items, mammals (797, 74.8%), birds (86, 8.1%), bird eggs (127, 11.9%), and lizards (35, 3.3%) were the most frequently eaten prey. Gopher snakes fed upon subterranean, nocturnal and diurnal prey. The serpents are primarily diurnal, but can also be active at night. Therefore, gopher snakes captured their victims by actively searching underground tunnel systems, retreat places and perching sites during the day, or by pursuing them or seizing them while they rested at night. Gopher snakes of all sizes preyed on mammals, but only individuals larger than 40 and 42 cm in snout–vent length took bird eggs and birds, respectively, possibly due to gape constraints in smaller serpents. Specimens that ate lizards were smaller than those that consumed mammals or birds. Gopher snakes raided nests regularly, as evidenced by the high frequency of nestling mammals and birds and avian eggs eaten. Most (332) P. catenifer contained single prey, but 95 animals contained 2–35 items. Of the 321 items for which direction of ingestion was determined, 284 (88.5%) were swallowed head-first, 35 (10.9%) were ingested tail-first, and two (0.6%) were taken sideways. Heavier gopher snakes took heavier prey, but heavier serpents ingested prey with smaller mass relative to snake mass, evidence that the lower limit of prey mass did not increase with snake mass. Specimens from the California Province and Arid Deserts (i.e. Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts) took the largest proportion of lizards, whereas individuals from the Great Basin Desert consumed a higher percentage of mammals than serpents from other areas, and P. catenifer from the Great Plains ate a greater proportion of bird eggs. Differences in prey availability among biogeographical regions and unusual circumstances of particular gopher snake populations may account for these patterns. Gopher snakes have proportionally longer heads than broadly sympatric Rhinocheilus lecontei (long-nosed snake), Charina bottae (rubber boa) and Lampropeltis zonata (California mountain kingsnake), which perhaps explains why, contrary to the case in P. catenifer, the smaller size classes of those three species do not eat mammals. © 2002 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 77, 165–183.

Additions to the knowledge of the natural history of Bothrophthalmus lineatus (Colubridae) from the Port Harcourt region of Nigeria

Feeding ecology of North American gopher snakes (Pituophis catenifer, Colubridae)

Evolutionary changes in animal diets must often begin through the inclusion of a novel food type as a minor component of the diet. An aspect of this initial change that has rarely been studied is the relationship between the existing diet and the use of specific novel foods. We used comparative analyses to test the hypothesis that, in snakes, feeding on squamate (lizard and snake) eggs or bird eggs—items that represent evolutionarily derived and, in most cases, minor components of the diet—is associated with feeding on squamates or birds, respectively. Phylogenetic concentrated‐changes tests indicate a significant tendency for predation on eggs to arise in snake lineages characterized by feeding on the corresponding animals. These results also generally hold for analyses including only snake species that are likely to encounter eggs and are large enough to ingest them. The inferred histories of specialized egg eaters also support the hypothesis. Because snakes often use chemical cues to recogniz...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/503118.pdf

Historical contingency and animal diets: the origins of egg eating in snakes.

Feeding performance (handling time, capture success) in numerous animal species is well known to be influenced by a variety of ecological, functional, and physiological factors. Nonetheless, few studies have tested which factors are the strongest determinants of animal feeding performance in the wild. Using a field-based experiment, we examined the relationships among a number of functionally important variables and the predatory behaviour of free-ranging pit-vipers (Ovophis okinavensis) from Okinawa Island, Japan. Our main findings were: (1) strike latency was negatively related to snake body temperature and, hence, hotter snakes struck at frogs more readily than colder snakes; (2) initial bite position was correlated with ingestion direction (headfirst versus hindfirst) but ingestion direction was not correlated with ingestion duration; and (3) both snake head length and body temperature were negatively related with ingestion duration and, thus, snakes with longer heads and higher body temperatures had shorter ingestion durations. In O. okinavensis, head size and body temperature are therefore likely to have direct ecological consequences in terms of its feeding rate on explosively breeding frogs. More generally, however, this field-based study adds to the growing body of literature demonstrating that temperature has a pervasive influence on the feeding performance of ectotherms in general. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 53–62.

Determinants of feeding performance in free‐ranging pit‐vipers (Viperidae: Ovophis okinavensis): key roles for head size and body temperature

/pdf/programa-de-pos-graduacao-em-ciencias-biologicas-area-de-5b29pil4eh.pdf

Programa de pós-graduação em ciências biológicas (área de concentração: zoologia) ecologia alimentar das quatro espécies dominantes da anurofauna de serapilheira em um gradiente altitudinal na ilha de são sebastião, sp

Additions to the knowledge of the natural history of Bothrophthalmus lineatus (Colubridae) from the Port Harcourt region of Nigeria

Citations

Feeding ecology of North American gopher snakes (Pituophis catenifer, Colubridae)

Historical contingency and animal diets: the origins of egg eating in snakes.

Determinants of feeding performance in free‐ranging pit‐vipers (Viperidae: Ovophis okinavensis): key roles for head size and body temperature

Programa de pós-graduação em ciências biológicas (área de concentração: zoologia) ecologia alimentar das quatro espécies dominantes da anurofauna de serapilheira em um gradiente altitudinal na ilha de são sebastião, sp