H umans think a snake’s life is simple. They slink. They slither. They bask. They bite.

But a Georgia College & State University vertebrate biologist says we don’t really know much at all about what snakes do and why. Using the latest, state-of-the art technology, Dr. Dominic DeSantis and his students are keeping an eye on these coiling creatures—where they go, what they eat and how they interact—hoping to learn their serpentine secrets.

“The role of snakes, especially the large-bodied rattlesnakes and pit vipers that we study, act as apex predators in the ecosystems they exist within. They're big, and they can eat a huge diversity of prey,” DeSantis said. “Rattlesnakes play a critical role, maintaining interactions between species. If we begin to lose them, I don't think anybody knows what those ecosystems devolve into.”

“Snakes act as an important linchpin pretty much everywhere in North America, but we don't understand that role very well,” he said. “We know it's important. We know they're there. We know they're really prominent in all these systems, sometimes in high numbers. So, clearly, they've got this crazy-important role to play. We just don't know exactly what that role is yet.”

As an undergraduate at Texas State University, DeSantis researched salamander behavior. During his doctorate studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, he pioneered a technique to track snakes and monitor their behavior using accelerometers, a device that measures vibrations or changing motion.

DeSantis was hired in 2020 to teach courses like vertebrate zoology and herpetology. He launched a series of case studies here, using the same technology, putting Georgia College students at the frontier of new discoveries in snake behavior.

Students with research include:

•    Recent graduate student Anna Tipton of Hartwell, Georgia. Tipton researched how snakes interact with roadways. Her thesis revealed a completely-new finding: Snakes sometimes move up and down one side of a road for weeks, flicking their tongues to assess the new sensory pathway—perhaps in confusion—before deciding to cross or turn back.
•    Graduate student, Morgan Thompson of Tucson, Arizona. Thompson is wrapping up her thesis validating the use of accelerometers to record predatory strikes and swallowing of prey by rattlesnakes in nature. This represents the first and only available method for monitoring these aspects of snake behavior.
•    Senior biology major Jack Powers of Roswell, Georgia. Powers will begin his master’s in biology at Georgia College in the fall and continue studying over-winter behavior in timber rattlesnakes—what DeSantis calls “a really important aspect of their ecology that’s almost completely overlooked in literature.”
•    Junior biology major Danielle Bartlett of Marietta, Georgia. Bartlett is testing rattlesnakes and pit vipers for a fungal disease that caused significant declines in snake populations in the Northeast and Midwest. Pinpointing factors associated with severe disease could help predict declines in local populations.

Eight Georgia College students—three graduate students and five undergraduates—work with DeSantis.

 

Half their research is driven by hypothesizes centered on behavioral ecology of snakes. The other half—what DeSantis calls “next generation natural history”—is driven by “cool emerging technologies,” like accelerometers.

Since the 1980s, radio telemetry was the only means of tracking snakes. That entry-level tech—basically a handheld antenna—allowed biologists to see where snakes went, point A to point B.

When accelerometers came on the scene 15 years ago, they were so big they could only be used on large marine mammals, like dolphins. Now, radio telemetry is used to locate a snake every few days. Transmitters track how far each snake has moved. But accelerometers collect other movement data like the number of times a snake eats, reproduces, constricts or strikes in self-defense.

Finally, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used to classify different behavioral states. What would take several graduate students two years to evaluate—AI can do in a matter of hours.

 

Twice a week, DeSantis’ group goes to Cedar Creek Wildlife Management Area, nearly 40,000 acres of forest in Eatonton. The university has permits from the U.S. Forest Service and Georgia Department of Natural Resources to track and study snakes at this site—which includes adjacent national forest and nearby private land owned by people who call DeSantis to relocate snakes from their yards.

Students hike 10 to 15 miles each visit, working in pairs. They track 22 snakes—19 rattlesnakes and three rat snakes—each implanted with small transmitters.

Using radio telemetry kits, handheld antennas and receivers—students adjust the tuning for each snake, which transmits its own frequency. They find and relocate snakes. They also record observations, like whether a snake is resting or in retreat. They note habitat, body temperature and wind speed.

Typically, each snake moves between 2 and 300 meters a night. At the end of the monitoring period, about a year, snakes are brought back to the lab at Georgia College.

Transmitters are surgically removed and snakes returned to the wild. Then, data logging begins.

“Because of methodological limitations,” DeSantis said, “it was always really challenging to study the behavior of rattlesnakes in the field, and it still remains challenging. As we further develop, advance and validate these technologies we're using, I think they'll prove pretty transformative for the discipline.”

 

Students research various topics. They’ve delved into foraging behaviors to see what snakes are eating. They ponder how much time snakes spend underground versus basking in the sun. With video cameras, they’ve caught social interactions between predator and prey—as well as squirrels and bobcats harassing snakes.

Now, they’re determining if snakes make decisions—like deliberately hibernating alone instead of groups when sick.

Graduate biology student, William Tillett of Atlanta loves this interactive learning.

 

He started as a chemistry major wanting to be a radiologist. That changed when he took ecology and caught the “research bug.” He stayed on for a master’s degree, and was the first to use accelerometers on rat snakes. Tillett discovered they eat more often than rattlers but use less space when foraging. He wondered how two large-bodied snakes exist in one place in high numbers.

Technology showed a surprising result.

Rat snakes move vertically, spending half their time in trees.

“Rattlesnakes are sit-and-wait foragers. They sit in one spot, sometimes for multiple days at a time, waiting for something to walk by, and then they strike,” Tillett said. “Rat snakes eat more, so they’re probably going to require a lot more energy to move throughout the environment, right? But it’s just peculiar. My results show the exact opposite.”

Now, Tillett's working with other research students training AI to characterize this behavior and determine if rat snakes are eating or resting in trees. Then, he hopes to get a Ph.D. and work in the U.S. Forest Service or Department of Natural Resources.

Coming to Georgia College helped him find his path.