born knowing tentacled snakes innately predict future prey behavior生知道有触手的蛇天生就预测未来行为的猎物.pdfVIP

Born Knowing: Tentacled Snakes Innately Predict Future Prey Behavior Kenneth C. Catania* Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America Abstract Background: Aquatic tentacled snakes (Erpeton tentaculatus) can take advantage of their prey’s escape response by startling fish with their body before striking. The feint usually startles fish toward the snake’s approaching jaws. But when fish are oriented at a right angle to the jaws, the C-start escape response translates fish parallel to the snake’s head. To exploit this latter response, snakes must predict the future location of the fish. Adult snakes can make this prediction. Is it learned, or are tentacled snakes born able to predict future fish behavior? ¨ Methods and Findings: Laboratory-born, naıve snakes were investigated as they struck at fish. Trials were recorded at 250 or 500 frames per second. To prevent learning, snakes were placed in a water container with a clear transparency sheet or glass bottom. The chamber was placed over a channel in a separate aquarium with fish below. Thus snakes could see and strike at fish, without contact. The snake’s body feint elicited C-starts in the fish below the transparency sheet, allowing ¨ strike accuracy to be quantified in relationship to the C-starts. When fish were oriented at a right angle to the jaws, naıve snakes biased their strikes to the future location of the escaping fish’s head, such that the snake’s jaws and the fish’s translating head usually converged. Several different