ENHS Nature Trails Sep 98 Article 1

Snakes, sex, and phermones: Phermonal meditation of sexual behavior in snakes
by Bob Mason
Associate Professor of Zoology at Oregon State University

This month's speaker is Dr. Robert Mason, Associate Professor of Zoology at Oregon State University since 1996. He is, as his program subject clearly reveals, one of those unusual individuals who is more than just fascinated by snakes. Bob loves to study snakes in all their intimate details. He wishes that more people loved snakes. When the departmental secretary said, "I saw a snake yesterday," he replied, "well, why didn't you bring it in? We could use it in our research!" Alas, not all are so enamored.

Bob says his interest in snakes is "boring; I was just your typical geek." He spent his childhood in Connecticut, far enough away from urban areas that he could spend hours roaming the woods picking up frogs, toads, snakes, or any other critter that caught his eye and which he could catch. His mother gets a lot of credit for not freaking, but insisting Bob take care of his captured wildlife in a terrarium or aquarium. And then, when he was tired of taking care of them (she knew this would happen) being sure they were properly released into the wild.

Mason's undergraduate degree in Biology was obtained at the College of Holy Cross in Worchester, Massachusetts. He did his doctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin. At Texas he demonstrated his interest in the reproductive behavior of snakes that will unfold at our first monthly program. His dissertation, done under the supervision of David Crews, is titled, "Sex pheromones and mediation of reproductive behavior in red-sided garter snakes."

The fascination with snake mating behavior is not new. The cover illustration and the illustrations below are taken from an article written over 60 years ago (1936), by D. Dwight Davis. They appeared in the Zoological Series of the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago), vol. 20, #22, pp. 257-290. The article is titled "Courtship & Mating Behavior in Snakes" and is probably the first modern review of the subject. The illustrations are excellent, and being in the public domain, are worth reproducing here for use in classrooms. The two garter snakes are Thamnophis radix (taxonomy from the 1936 article); the three diagrams of snake mating dances are of various colubrid snakes, a group that includes the garter snakes.

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