More than Mimicry? Evaluating scopre for the flicker-fusion hypothesis in mimetic kingsnakes. (2014)

Undergraduates: Georgia Titcomb, David Kikuchi David Pfennig

Faculty Advisor: David Pfennig
Department: Biology

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Coral snakes and their mimics often have brightly colored banded patterns, generally associated with warning coloration or mimicry. However, these color patterns have also been hypothesized to aid snakes in escaping predators through a ¿flicker-fusion¿ effect. According to this hypothesis, banded color patterns confuse potential predators when a snake transitions from resting to moving because its bands blur together to form a different color. To produce this motion blur, a moving snake¿s bands must transition faster than the critical flicker-fusion rate at which a predator¿s photoreceptors can refresh. It is unknown if coral snakes or their mimics meet this requirement. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the movement speed and color patterns of two coral snake mimics, Lampropeltis triangulum campbelli and L. elapsoides, and comparing the frequency of color transitions to the photoreceptor activity of the avian eye. We found that snakes frequently produced a motion blur, but moving snakes created a blurring effect more often in darker conditions, such as sunrise, sunset, and nighttime when these snakes are most active. Thus, at least two species of coral snake mimics are capable of achieving flicker-fusion, indicating that their color patterns may confer an additional defense aside from mimicry.