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Article Dans Une Revue Austral Ecology Année : 2008

Thirsty sea snakes forsake refuge during rainfall

Résumé

Vertebrates living in dry or salty habitats spend significant amounts of time and energy maintaining their hydro-mineral balance; any opportunity to drink fresh water should reduce such expenses. However, to find fresh water, individuals are generally forced to leave the safe and buffered conditions that prevail in their refuges. Therefore, they must face harsh environmental conditions and increased predation risks.We examined this trade-off in the field, using a very large dataset gathered on amphibious sea snakes that confront periodic droughts.The study was carried out on different islets in the lagoon of New Caledonia. As expected, sea kraits remain concealed most of the time under rocks or within burrows during dry weather. They select precise time windows to move rapidly between the sea and the land, thereby minimizing the time spent in the open. Rainfall triggered massive disruptions of this rhythm: many snakes quickly forsook their shelter to drink in the open, and remained almost motionless until satiety. Interestingly, they adopted specific and unusual postures to drink. They perched on the top of rocks that were benefiting from runn

Dates et versions

hal-00330447 , version 1 (14-10-2008)

Identifiants

Citer

Xavier Bonnet, Francois Brischoux. Thirsty sea snakes forsake refuge during rainfall. Austral Ecology, 2008, 33, pp.911-921. ⟨10.1111/j.1442-9993.2008.01917.x⟩. ⟨hal-00330447⟩

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