Paradoxical Exception to Island Tameness: Increased Defensiveness in an Insular Population of Rattlesnakes
Island tameness results largely from a lack of natural predators.Because some insular rattlesnake populations lack functional rattles, presumably the consequence of relaxed selection from reduced predation, we hypothesized that the Santa Catalina Island, California, USA, population of the southern Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus helleri, which posses