ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ethol.
Sec. Applied Ethology and Sentience
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fetho.2025.1634578
This article is part of the Research TopicAt the Nexus of Environment & Ethology: Considerations for the Role of Environmental Cues in Ethological ResearchView all articles
Scents for Serpentes: Are familiar humans un-hiss-takable?
Provisionally accepted
- Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, United States
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Although snakes are commonly housed in captivity, little research has investigated the impacts of common stimuli in their environments. Familiar scents, for example, may be indicative of threat or the lack thereof and may be associated with stress. Snakes have a highly developed sense of smell and can discriminate prey, mates, and kin by scent. Humans are regularly present in captive environments, but only one study has tested whether a single snake species discriminated scents of familiar and unfamiliar humans. We investigated whether 19 snakes of nine species housed privately or at nature centers showed differential behavioral responses to the scents of familiar human handlers, unfamiliar humans, and control stimuli. There were no significant effects of condition, housing, or sociality on movement, investigation, or tongue-flicking rates. We did not replicate a previous finding with corn snakes, likely due to procedural or housing differences, which will be important for future explorations of this understudied topic.
Keywords: Snakes, olfactory, Human interactions, chemosensory perception, Housing
Received: 24 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vonk, Jordan, Pappas, Stellman and Leibowitz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jennifer Vonk, Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, 48309, MI, United States
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