USE OF AN ACTIVE ANT NEST AS A HIBERNACULUM BY SMALL SNAKE SPECIES

George R. Pisani

2009. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 112(1-2): 113-118

>From the article . . .

"Ant mounds offer potential hibernacula both for small snake species and also for
juveniles of many species, though this potential may be offset by aggression of ants in
active nests and the concomitant risk of death for snakes, especially juveniles. Despite this
risk, such hibernacula may be especially important for snake species not adapted (as is
Carphophis for example) for burrowing in habitats where soils are dense, or rocky, and
difficult for snakes to excavate. Thermal characteristics of ant nests appear only to offer
snakes access to survivable temperatures below frost line, rather than temperatures
notably warmer than surrounding soils."

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http://www.cnah.org/cnah_pdf.asp

Makes real interesting reading!

I've read a couple of years ago a paper who talk about ant nest used by snakes to hibernate. The guy who made the study (in USA, Michigan if I remember) had placed a kind of trap around some den sites. I remember he found a couple of redbelly snake, 2 or 3 smooth greens and a juvenile northern water snake.

There is another cool and unusual thing a biologist and friend told me about black rat snake in Ontario (or in northern USA, I only remember the story). There was an herpetologist who made a study on this specie and he was following many specimens by telemetry. When he want to know where some specimens where denning, he found they hibernate in a dead tree. He found that temperature inside the tree was high enough to keep them alive for the whole winter.

Personally, I collect data about some den site. I found a lot in my life, in different kind of habitats and involving most snakes species in Québec. I never found any den in ant's nest and I don't know if this as been reported in the province.

Cheers