How Do Colombian Aquatic Snakes Use Weird 'Sensors' To Hunt Prey?

Andrew Wight
Contributor

Aug 20, 2024,07:47pm EDT

Researchers in Colombia have scanned the skins of aquatic snakes to figure out how sensillae, tiny sensor-like structures, could help them find and attack prey.

Sensillae, which are characterized by a dome-like shape protrusions from the skin of freshwater gartersnakes, function as a sensory organ that detect direct pressure stimuli or vibrations.

Valeria Velasquez Cañon, a biologist and graduate of the University of Caldas in Colombia says that she and the co-authors of a a July 2024 paper in the international journal Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science studied these structures in the bodies of snakes from the species Helicops pastazae (a fish-eater found in rocky rivers) and Helicops danieli and Helicops angulatus (two species usually found in grassland floodplains, and have a more generalist diet, composed of fish, frogs and lizards).

"Among the most interesting results, we observed that these sensillae do not present a homogeneous distribution along the body, they are mainly concentrated on the lateral part of the neck," she says, "Although the hunting behavior of these species has not yet been described, these results may give us clues to the possibility that they present 'lateral strikes' for predation."

More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewwight/2024/08/20/how-do-colombian-aquatic-snakes-use-weird-sensors-to-hunt-prey/