Effectiveness of manual palpation in the Northern Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon sipedon, as a method to extract gut contents for dietary studies

摘要: Dietary studies have valuable implications to natural history, conservation, and management of species. Four known methods are used determine the presence, absence, identify gut contents for dietary include: stable isotope analysis, fecal flushing, manual palpation. I tested effectiveness latter method in Common Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon sipedon. Ninety-five individuals were captured using visual encounter surveys (VES) manually palpated presence/absence contents. Thirty-seven specimens from Marshall University Herpetology Museum dissected number with content was compared individuals. Based on data collected, a Pearson chi-square test conducted resulting failure accept null hypothesis, X 2 (1, N=135) = 0.7296, p= 0.05.. The results suggest palpation is more effective than dissection museum result significantly different numbers samples. study provides first quantitative information regarding methodologies most frequently snake studies.