What is it about?
Why do ground squirrels approach rattlesnakes and wave their tail side-to-side (tail flagging)? Using radio telemetry and portable video surveillance equipment, we found that tail-flagging signals a squirrel's vigilance, which deters snakes from striking because the squirrel is ready to dodge the strike. In addition, tail-flagging communicates the presence of the snake to neighboring squirrels, which causes the snake to abandon its hunt early because its unlikely to be successful.
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Why is it important?
Our results provide the first empirical evidence of the mechanisms by which a prey display, although frequently given in the absence of a predator, may still deter predators during encounters.
Perspectives
Most studies of predator-deterrent signals use humans as surrogates for natural predators. Therefore, it is often unknown whether these signals actually deter predators because the responses of free-ranging predators go unexamined. Our extensive field observations of numerous free-ranging rattlesnakes provided a rigorous test of the adaptive significance of squirrel tail-flagging.
Dr Matt Barbour
University of British Columbia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ground squirrel tail-flag displays alter both predatory strike and ambush site selection behaviours of rattlesnakes, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, July 2012, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1112.
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