Bundle of love: garter snakes get cosy
© SPL
Posted on 11/17/2001 8:08:37 AM PST by dighton
Female impersonation makes male snakes hot, say researchers. By attracting a writhing ball of amorous but deluded suitors, 'she-male' garter snakes speed their recovery from hibernation1.
When the garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) of Manitoba, Canada, emerge from hibernation in April, their body temperature has been 4 (C for eight months. "They're cold to the bone," says zoologist Robert Mason of Oregon State University in Corvallis.
This makes the males sluggish and vulnerable to predators such as crows. Mason and his colleagues believe that she-male behaviour has evolved to encourage the warming physical contact of other males.
She-males keep up the ruse for only a few days at most, and warmer snakes lose their attractiveness to other males more quickly than frigid ones. "It's just a phase that boys go through on their way to he-maleness," says another member of the team, ecologist Rick Shine of the University of Sydney.
Fraudster males may produce female pheromones. Alternatively, being cold may simply stop them releasing a manly smell, provoking more active males to court them on the off-chance that they might be potential mates. The researchers' next aim is to distinguish between these possibilities.
Female impersonation, through appearance, behaviour and smell, pops up elsewhere in the animal kingdom, particularly among insects. It is usually assumed to subvert aggression from other males and offer sneaky access to mates.
That natural, not sexual, selection might be at work in garter snakes "is a novel suggestion - it sounds really exciting", says Harry Greene, a snake researcher at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
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1. Shine, R. Phillips, B. Waye, H. LeMaster, M. & Mason, R. T. Benefits of female mimicry in snakes. Nature, 414, 267 , (2001).
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001
Bundle of love: garter snakes get cosy
© SPL
Ah, in the middle of the article comes the reality. They don't know if it is transvestism or not.
But that's ok, a half-truth does as well as truth when you're a social engineer.
The unbearable lourd-ness of some.
Because comments #1 & 2 seemed to suggest that the author of this piece, or the scientists quoted, had some sneaky agenda. I think it's a fun and interesting article. That is all.
What do I win?
So long as it includes a bit of the blue stuff, I don't see why not.
I think I see an agenda here.
That depends on which side the buttons are found ...
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