Anyone ever seen or heard of a plant eating cottonmouth?
 

Ok, the barrier island cottonmouths feeding on fish dropped from birds is not news to me, i have heard these reports for years. However, if i read this correctly, these researchers are reporting that cottonmouths on these islands are eating plants, and that is news to me. anyone else seen or heard of such a thing?

NEWS RELEASE
The Center for North American Herpetology
Lawrence, Kansas
http://www.cnah.org
14 November 2008

PITVIPER SCAVENGING AT THE INTERTIDAL ZONE: AN EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO FOR
INVASION OF THE SEA

Harvey B. Lillywhite, Coleman M. Sheehy III & Frederic Zaidan III

2008 BioScience 58(10): 947-955

Abstract: It is difficult for terrestrial vertebrates to invade the sea, and little is known about the transitional evolutionary processes that produce secondarily marine animals. The utilization of marine resources in the intertidal zone is likely to be an important first step for invasion. An example of this step is marine scavenging by the Florida Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti) that inhabit Gulf Coast islands. These snakes principally consume dead fish that are dropped from colonial nesting bird rookeries, but they also scavenge beaches for intertidal carrion, consuming dead fish and marine plants, and occasionally enter seawater. Thus, allochthonous marine productivity supports the insular cottonmouth population through two pathways, and one of these pathways connects the snakes directly to the sea. The trophic ecology and behaviors of this unusual snake population suggest a requisite evolutionary scenario for the successful transition of vertebrates from a terrestrial to a marine existence.

Hmmmm... Interesting proposition, but lacking in any sort of actual data.

looks like a proposal to me...meaning no data yet. as for the snakes eating the plants, maybe they mean that the snakes ingest the plants secondaraly, not directly. not sure would have to see the entire paper.

perhaps only mistaken identity?
 

my knee-jerk reaction is that the "sea weed" contains fish particles or scrimp or something that makes it smell "fishy." i am a cottonmouth enthusiast, to say the least. i have worked with wild caught cottons before that were exclusive fish eaters. i would make a paste from fish and use it to scent mice. the cottons were quick to accept the scented mice. perhaps this is only a case of the cottons inadvertently eating the plants because they are fish scented. i am wondering if i scented a piece of steamed broccoli, would some of my cottons take it? probably will test that in the spring.

I actually got ahold the paper and read it, and any sort of "herbivorous snake" blurb is vastly overdone.

The bulk of the paper concerns the snakes scavenging from dropped fish or fish which washed ashore, and how these behaviors open up possibilities for how terrestrial vertebrates transition to marine life.

Buried within, though, is a short section in which they note a captured snake defecated a large mass (58 g) of undigested plant debris. They offered numerous different types of marine plant matter to captive snakes from this population, and all sniffed at it but refused unless it either was wrapped around dead fish, or scented with fish.

While the algae used in lab is claimed to be "digestible", no actual evidence of this was given in the paper (which swiftly moved back to the main topic of shoreline scavenging), and the defecation from the wild individual was undigested, which is consistent with prior views of the snake digestive system being unable to process plant matter (with the exception of pre-digested material present in the midgut and hindgut of ingested herbivorous prey items). Given that the snake defecated the algae, it must have already passed from the stomach into the intestines, and therefore survived the snake's best attempts at digestive processing.

I know the lead author, and he'll probably be at the scientific conference I'm going to in a few months, so I'll try to remember to ask him about whether the experimental feedings resulted in similar defectations of intact plant matter.

just as i expected
 

thank you for researching that, and that is exactly what i expected. i have some cottons that are rabid feeders. and i am certain i could scent a vegetable with fish and they would swallow it. but i dont think i could ever convert them to take vegetables as we often do with rats.