Do Snakes Swallow their Young?

Do young toddlers act on their social preferences?

From preschool age to adulthood, most humans prefer to help someone who has treated others well over helping someone who has treated others badly. Researchers have recently made opposing predictions about whether such observation-based preferential helping is present when children begin to help in the second year of life. In the present study, 84 toddlers (16-27 months) observed 1 experimenter ...

Postural and Spinal Disorders: Do They Affect the Normal Swallow?

Young children (sometimes) do the right thing even when their peers do not

Children must sometimes decide between conforming to peer behavior and doing what is right. While research shows that children have a strong inclination to act prosocially and to help conspecifics in need, many studies also demonstrate that children tend to adopt peer behavior. In two studies (N = 96), we investigated whether children would conform to an antisocial majority or, whether they wou...

Experimental studies of coral snake mimicry: do snakes mimic millipedes?

The prevalence of similarly ringed colour patterns in Neotropical snake species has stimulated heated controversy over the cause of this apparent convergence since it was first noted by Cope (1860) and Wallace (1870) in the last century. These ringed and banded species include venomous (neurotoxic) elapid coral snakes (Micrurus) and a number of mildly or non-venomous colubrid and anniliid snake...

How Do Nocturnal Snakes Select Diurnal Retreat Sites ?

Theoretical and empirical studies of habitat selection suggest that reptiles should use ‘‘fixed’’ structural features (perch diameter, vegetation) or light intensity (sun and shade) to select thermally suitable microhabitats. But how do nocturnal species select thermally suitable diurnal retreat sites at night in the absence of visual cues? To investigate this question, we studied habitat selec...