Cryptic sociality in rattlesnakes ( Crotalus horridus ) detected by kinship analysis

Abstract

Research on social behaviour has largely concentrated on birds and mammals in visually active, cooperatively breeding groups (although such systems are relatively rare) and focused much less on species that rarely interact other than for mating and parental care. We used microsatellite markers to characterize relatedness among aggregations of timber rattlesnakes ( Crotalus horridus ), a putatively solitary reptile that relies heavily on chemical cues, and found that juveniles and pregnant females preferentially aggregate with kin under certain conditions. The ability to recognize kin and enhance indirect fitness thus might be far more widespread than implied by studies of animals whose behaviour is primarily visually and/or acoustically mediated, and we predict that molecular markers will reveal many additional examples of ‘cryptic’ sociality.