Report from the field!
Wickenburg, Arizona, where the temperature is a chilly 114 degrees.
Staff from Zoo Atlanta’s Research, Herpetology, and Veterinary Departments are conducting grant-funded fieldwork in the Arizona desert this month. About a year ago, in collaboration with veterinary virologists from the University of Florida, we discovered a highly unusual virus in a population of sidewinder rattlesnakes near Yuma, Arizona. The only known virus even remotely similar to this one is endemic to Australia, so this definitely caught our attention!
Currently, the sidewinder population in Yuma seems to be fine, but precedents like the amphibian chytrid fungus have taught me never to ignore a novel potential pathogen. Fieldwork this summer is to survey all snake species across three sites in southern Arizona, away from Yuma. These are basic surveys to get a better idea of the geographic distribution of the virus and attempt to understand how many snake species it may use as a host.
In the summer heat, almost all desert snakes become nocturnal. So, a standard method of surveying snakes that herpetologists use is called “night driving.” This involves cruising along low-traffic roads through the desert and watching for snakes crossing them in their nightly roaming. It is a very efficient way to survey a lot of area, although it appears lazy compared to intrepid hikes through the desert – which produce nothing during the heat of the day and are very impractical, inefficient, and thus unproductive at night.
Once the snakes are captured, our amazing Vet Team takes the samples needed from the mouth of the snake. The Herpetology Team manages the dicey rattlesnakes for the vets. The snakes are then released at their exact point-of-capture.
Roadkill samples are a sad reality in night-driving surveys. While the demise of the snakes is tragic, we can still get our samples from them if they are not too decomposed. It makes me feel a tiny bit better knowing that these poor snakes still can contribute to our knowledge of them.
Next, we ship the samples on dry ice to the lab at the University of Florida and await the results! Last week, near Portal, in the southeastern corner of the state, we sampled a whip snake, a kingsnake, a gophersnake, and three species of rattlesnakes. The last few days, here in Wickenburg (northwest of Phoenix), we encountered drought conditions and only one western diamondback rattlesnake. So, we are pulling up stakes here and heading south to Ajo, which is very near the gorgeous Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Fingers crossed for wetter conditions there!
Dr. Joe Mendelson
Director of Research
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