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Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia
Although giant snakes are abundant in some tropical forests, their ecology is far less well-known than for smaller species of snakes in cooler climates. Information on spatial ecology can clarify management issues such as the sizes and types of habitats needed for conservation. We radio-tracked 27 s...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960824/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35347214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09369-5 |
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author | Natusch, Daniel Lyons, Jessica Shine, Richard |
author_facet | Natusch, Daniel Lyons, Jessica Shine, Richard |
author_sort | Natusch, Daniel |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although giant snakes are abundant in some tropical forests, their ecology is far less well-known than for smaller species of snakes in cooler climates. Information on spatial ecology can clarify management issues such as the sizes and types of habitats needed for conservation. We radio-tracked 27 scrub pythons (Simalia amethistina; snout-vent lengths 2.02 to 3.70 m) in Cape York, near the northeastern tip of Australia, for a mean period of 426 days (up to 1001 days) per snake. Home ranges were larger in males than females (means 0.60 vs. 0.28 km(2)) and overlapped considerably among individuals. All snakes used rainforest habitat, but seasonal shifts into open woodland were common. Snakes were active primarily by night, with larger snakes hunting less of the time overall, and more often by day. Hunting behaviour was seen more often during the wet season than the dry season. Average daily displacement was < 10 m, typically involving a shift from diurnal refuge to nocturnal ambush-site. A reliance on sit-and-wait predation results in small home ranges and limited movements, despite the large body size of this species. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8960824 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89608242022-03-30 Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia Natusch, Daniel Lyons, Jessica Shine, Richard Sci Rep Article Although giant snakes are abundant in some tropical forests, their ecology is far less well-known than for smaller species of snakes in cooler climates. Information on spatial ecology can clarify management issues such as the sizes and types of habitats needed for conservation. We radio-tracked 27 scrub pythons (Simalia amethistina; snout-vent lengths 2.02 to 3.70 m) in Cape York, near the northeastern tip of Australia, for a mean period of 426 days (up to 1001 days) per snake. Home ranges were larger in males than females (means 0.60 vs. 0.28 km(2)) and overlapped considerably among individuals. All snakes used rainforest habitat, but seasonal shifts into open woodland were common. Snakes were active primarily by night, with larger snakes hunting less of the time overall, and more often by day. Hunting behaviour was seen more often during the wet season than the dry season. Average daily displacement was < 10 m, typically involving a shift from diurnal refuge to nocturnal ambush-site. A reliance on sit-and-wait predation results in small home ranges and limited movements, despite the large body size of this species. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-03-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8960824/ /pubmed/35347214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09369-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Natusch, Daniel Lyons, Jessica Shine, Richard Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title | Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title_full | Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title_fullStr | Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title_full_unstemmed | Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title_short | Spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (Simalia amethistina) in tropical Australia |
title_sort | spatial ecology, activity patterns, and habitat use by giant pythons (simalia amethistina) in tropical australia |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960824/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35347214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09369-5 |
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