Snake Evolution and Biogeography [SEB]

If you live in an area where you frequently see snakes dead on the road and can safely stop, consider saving up a few in your freezer to send to be preserved either through us or your closest natural history collection!

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A map showing the distribution of two species of Cottonmouth with a blue dot in the Florida panhandle, indicating the location of the snake in this thread. Adapted from: Burbrink, Frank T., and Timothy J. Guiher. "Considering gene flow when using coalescent methods to delimit lineages of North American pitvipers of the genus Agkistrodon." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 173.2 (2015): 505-526.

This particular snake will be quite useful in the future - was found in a geographic zone of admixture where the two understood species of Cottonmouth intersect. Having both tissue and the body to study morphology through this zone allows us to study hybrid zone dynamics in both DNA and phenotype.

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This snake was relatively unscathed so despite being dead on the road (DOR), it can be used for research in a huge variety of ways. This group took tissue and preserved this snake so it will live on forever as a part of a permanent public museum collection as a snapshot in time of this population.

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Seven people with snake catching gear in hand, standing on a coastal limerock road in habitat looking at a dead snake.

A dead cottonmouth half-buried by ants. A group of people are looking on, taking photos.

An interesting find from our first group trip in 2022 - this Cottonmouth was run over and subsequently, ants started to bury it.

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Just what I was looking for, Thank you! Feel free to add SEB to the list.

Alex McKelvy

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A white pickup offroad with a Florida state use plate and a bed full of excited herpers spilling out of it, on their way to check drift fence arrays with the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, taken from the front of another, large, offroad vehicle.

If this interests you and you want to learn more, join us on a trip or need a snake identified, join our discord community here: discord.gg/QpBQthS3TZ

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We also offer the best snake ID service on the web through our education arm on reddit - reddit.com/r/whatsthissnake
An active community with distinguished reliable responders and flaired users combined with an assistive bot get you an accurate ID and any questions you have about snakes answered.

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Preserving these snakes and tissues is important as it offer researchers a snapshot in time from these populations. All tissues and vouchers are deposited in publicly held collections. Our efforts have resulted in collection of ~700 tissue samples that would have otherwise faded away on a roadway.

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SEB Fall 2024 Public 57 new items added to shared album

We have field classes twice a year where we meet to learn how to take tissues and make vouchers from snakes that are found dead on the road (DOR).

Some photos from our recent trip!
photos.app.goo.gl/C6YMhCa8zSdp...

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Eight people gathered around a large table in a remote area alongside a river working on taking biological samples and preserving snakes for museum research.

A Florida Cottonmouth coiled on a limerock Florida road

Snake Evolution and Biogeography (SEB) is on BlueSky!

SEB (SnakeEvolution.org) is dedicated to advancing the public understanding of snake natural history through education and to facilitate ongoing research by increasing the volume of materials deposited in public natural history collections.

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