Meeting Abstract
Snakes generally have evolved to eat relatively large prey items whole on an infrequent basis. Therefore, they tend to up-regulate their metabolism and digestive mechanisms just after a feeding event and then down-regulate once they have completed digestion. Animals in captivity are often fed on a set schedule, but in the wild feeding frequency is closely associated with prey availability. We hypothesize that snakes will more efficiently digest their prey when it is fed less frequently and may be less efficient when prey is readily available. In order to determine if snakes adjust their digestive efficiency to match feeding frequency (as a proxy for prey availability) we fed three experimental groups of corn snakes (Pantherophis guttatus) and rat snakes (Pantherophis emoryi) at different frequencies while keeping the total percentage of their body mass consumed constant. We then determined caloric content of the prey item and the feces associated with each feeding event. We find that corn snakes grow at a faster rate when fed once a week and no experimental group exhibits a difference in digestive efficiency. Because digestive efficiency remains constant while growth rate is generally curvilinear in respect to feeding frequency, an optimal feeding frequency exists for this species. Future studies will investigate this phenomenon with other species that exhibit different natural feeding frequencies.
