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Effects of Six Visual Stimulus Conditions on Defensive and Exploratory Behavior in Two Species of Rattlesnakes

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Abstract

Presentation of faces of living animals (dog, human) and nonliving models (coyote, mink) to prairie rattlesnakes, Crotalus viridis viridis, and Western Massasauga rattlesnakes, Sistrurus catenatus tergeminus, for 10-sec. intervals of visual inspection established that movement is the primary component in eliciting defensive and exploratory responses. These snakes probably are not sensitive to any particular static conformational features of the faces of canids or mustelids, indicating the incorrectness of an initial working hypothesis that such features are releasers of defensive behavior. Since small moving objects tend to release predatory attack behavior while large moving objects release defensive behavior, we offer the hypothesis that a movement-size feature detection system mediates these visually guided behaviors.

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Reference Notes

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of E.P.O. Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA

    Kent M. Scudder

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

    David Chiszar

Authors
  1. Kent M. Scudder
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  2. David Chiszar
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Additional information

This paper is based on an honors thesis directed by the second author and submitted by the first author to the Department of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder. The authors thank Drs. S. V. Taylor (Psychology Department) and H. M. Smith (E.P.Ö. Biology Department) for guidance during this research and for help in the preparation of the manuscript. Financial support was provided by the M. M. Schmidt Foundation.

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Scudder, K.M., Chiszar, D. Effects of Six Visual Stimulus Conditions on Defensive and Exploratory Behavior in Two Species of Rattlesnakes. Psychol Rec 27, 519–526 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394473

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