APSU graduate student captures three cottonmouth males battle on video
(Published July 1, 2019)
The video starts with two cottonmouths jockeying in an Alabama swamp. Their heads sway above the water, each snake trying to find the best position.
Within seconds a third cottonmouth swims into the shot. The fight quickly escalates, and the snakes wrestle more furiously in an effort to pin each other or tire each other out.
The three cottonmouths are males, and the winner claims a valuable prize: the right to mate with a nearby female.
Austin Peay graduate student Claire Ciafre captured the video on June 4 near Huntsville, Alabama.
鈥淚 actually happened upon the cottonmouths while doing work for my thesis,鈥 said Ciafre, who鈥檚 studying new wetland plant communities. 鈥淚鈥檝e been helping members of the APSU herpetology lab catch cottonmouths for their research, so I鈥檇 certainly seen them before.
鈥淚鈥檇 never seen that behavior, however, and incorrectly assumed they were mating,鈥 she added. 鈥淚 thought it looked cool and figured it would make my lab-mates jealous, so I took the video.鈥
RARE VIDEO GAINS IN POPULARITY
She posted the video to her Facebook page on June 7. A week later, Dr. Chris Gienger 鈥 APSU鈥檚 curator of herpetology 鈥 posted the video to the Herpetology at Austin Peay State University Facebook page. The video quickly gained popularity and by July 1 hit 168,000 views on the herpetology page.
Gienger told Ciafre the video showed three male cottonmouths competing to determine who mated with a nearby female (not captured in the video). Cottonmouth battles are not commonly observed and capturing one on high-quality video (such as Ciafre鈥檚) is even more rare.
鈥淭he two 鈥榣osers鈥 will ultimately give up and leave,鈥 Ciafre said. 鈥淚 imagine that the losers either get too exhausted to continue or just realize it鈥檚 not worth the effort.
鈥淭his means that only the biggest, strongest and/or healthiest males will contribute to the gene pool.鈥
鈥榃ORTH OUR RESPECT AND APPRECIATION鈥
Ciafre hopes the video鈥檚 popularity will help counter the negative stigma surrounding snakes, especially venomous ones.
鈥淚 definitely didn鈥檛 expect the video to be as successful as it was,鈥 she said. 鈥淭here were negative comments and seeing them was a bit disheartening.
鈥淚 think (the video has) been as popular as it has because it鈥檚 a behavior that few people have seen in snakes,鈥 Ciafre added. 鈥淕etting people curious about a behavior, and then therefore the animal, is the first step to getting them to accept that animal.
鈥淚 hope my video helped some to realize that these animals can be fascinating and worth our respect and appreciation.鈥
MORE ABOUT CIAFRE鈥橲 RESEARCH
Ciafre wasn鈥檛 in Alabama studying snakes. She鈥檚 comparing and describing new wetland plant communities, specifically in the eastern Highland Rim, a mostly flat strip of land running from Kentucky through Tennessee east of Murfreesboro and into Alabama.
鈥淭his area used to be covered in prairie, and remnants of that can still be found in open wetlands because they were too wet to plow or build on,鈥 she said. 鈥淭he wetlands I鈥檓 looking at have a lot of plants that are usually found along the coast, so it has really interesting implications for what the historic prairies of Tennessee may have looked like and how they鈥檒l respond to climate change.鈥
Ciafre is collecting samples from 14 sites this summer and fall; she collected from 16 sites last year.
TO LEARN MORE
For more about Austin Peay鈥檚 Department of Biology, visit .
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