How Quickly are Road-killed Snakes Scavenged? Implications for Underestimates of Road Mortality

Abstract

Abstract Annually, millions of snakes are killed on roads in the United States. Because of their potential abundance and ease of collection, many researchers have used road-killed snakes to examine community composition, movement patterns, and population dynamics. However, few previous studies have accounted for snake carcasses that are removed from roads by scavengers. Snake carcasses were placed at randomly selected locations along 2 km of road, one traversing maritime forest and the other surrounded by dune habitat. Carcasses in forested habitat were removed more often (100% vs 40%) and more quickly (8 hr vs 11 hr) than those placed in dune habitat. Half of the carcasses (50%) were removed within eight hours of placement and all carcasses were removed at night. Species and size of carcasses did not affect removal time. Removal time and scavenging intensity of snake carcasses most likely varies across regions and habitats. Furthermore, because scavenging appears to occur quickly and to such a significant extent, it may confound results of studies examining patterns of road-mortality. Thus, investigators that use data from road-killed snakes would benefit from a concurrent investigation of scavenging and application of appropriate correction factors to avoid underestimation of snake mortality.