Natural History of the Racer Coluber constrictorFitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Science
Natural History of the Racer Coluber constrictor
Fitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Racer snake
At 12:55 p. m. it was necessary for me to discontinue observations,
and I left the female confined in a cloth bag. Returning at 1:20 p. m.
I found that the male was not displaying interest in the female
confined in the bag, nor in the other female loose in the enclosure.
The first female was released from the bag, and was out of sight for
approximately four minutes. When relocated she was again attended by
the male, who was carrying on courtship even more vigorously than he
had before. At 1:35 p. m. the male achieved intromission. Although the
pair was under observation at the time intromission occurred, the
actual eversion of the hemipenis was not seen because the snakes were
partly concealed by dense vegetation. There was a sudden flurry of
movement, the male's head waving and his body thrashing. In an instant
these violent movements subsided, and after a few seconds the female
began to crawl forward slowly. The male had relaxed, and relinquished
his contact with the female anteriorly. As she moved away he was
dragged after her tail-first. He made slight backward wriggling
movements that perhaps aided in maintaining sexual contact. The
female's restlessness increased, and in eight minutes she dragged the
male in a circuitous course a distance estimated to be between 20 and
30 feet. At 1:40 p. m. the pair was ten feet from the point where
copulation had begun. The female showed increasing inclination to
climb, raising her head and forebody against the trunks of saplings,
and finally reaching up one to a branch 20 inches above the ground,
and climbing first along the branch and then farther up the main
trunk. As she progressed the male was lifted from the ground,
dangling limply suspended by his hemipenis and its base had become
exposed. At 1:43 p. m. separation occurred and the male dropped into
the grass. Semen dripped from the cloacae of both snakes. That from
the female was tinged with blood. The individuals involved in this
observation were kept in the enclosure subsequently but no further
sexual behavior was noted.
Contrary to the popular belief that these racers have permanent mates,
all available evidence indicates that they are promiscuous, and two or
more males may simultaneously court the same female in the brief
spring breeding season. On May 24, 1960, while I was walking in a
hilltop field of brome grass, a sudden movement attracted my attention
to three racers lying alongside each other. Only the posterior parts
of their bodies and their tails were visible. Two were males and were
performing the characteristic slow writhing movements against the body
of the female from either side. Although the heads were not in view,
the snakes may have been able to see me through the screening
vegetation; after I had watched for approximately 20 seconds, all
three suddenly took alarm, for no apparent cause, and scattered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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