Monitoring and keeping track of snakes is a cumbersome task. Jeff Lemm knows the inefficiencies all too well. The herpetologist has been studying red diamond rattlesnakes (Crotalus ruber) for years. In the early 2000s, he radio-tagged a few of the pit vipers in a bid to trace their movements. Since snakes don’t have appendages, the telemetry radios had to be surgically implanted, giving rise to time-consuming challenges. “Snakes have to come in and out of anesthesia, and there is a risk of infection,” Lemm, conservation program specialist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA), told Mongabay in a video interview. “You have to time it out so that you get the radios back in time before the battery dies, or else you would lose the snake.” Now, Lemm is working to reinvent how snakes are monitored and studied. He and his team at the SDZWA have collaborated with researchers at San Diego State University on a way to use tiny and noninvasive transmitters and accelerometers to study snakes. The transmitters can be attached to the base of the snake’s rattle, while the specially designed accelerometers are attached near the animal’s neck. “It is a game changer not having to catch the animal and bring it to the vet and wait for it to recover,” Lemm said. “We could do it right there in the field and get the snake back out and moving in half the time.” For years, telemetry radios had to be surgically implanted into the snakes…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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