Crotalus aquilus in the Mexican state of México consumes a diverse summer diet ESTRELLA MOCIÑO-DELOYA1, KIRK SETSER1, SUZANNE C. PEURACH2, and JESSE M. MEIK3 1Departamento de Biología Animal, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, España.
[email protected] [author for correspondence] 2USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. P.O. Box 37012, Room 378 MRC 111, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, USA 3Department of Biology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX USA 76019 ABSTRACT – We report observations of the summer diet of Crotalus aquilus (Querétaro dusky rattlesnake) from an agricultural region near San Pedro de los Metates, municipality of Acambay, state of México, Mexico. We recovered the remains of 12 individual prey items from 11 different snakes. Eleven of 38 (29%) snakes observed contained prey remains, including 6 mammals, 3 lizards, and 3 snakes. These observations suggest that C. aquilus consumes a diverse diet and that they may be more ophiophagous than many other rattlesnakes. ASIC information describing the natural species (Meik et al., 2007), and individuals in this history and ecology of most Mexican snakes population may achieve larger sizes than those in remainsB fragmentary, particularly for species more northern populations (Mociño-Deloya et al., endemic to the country. Despite recognition of the 2007). The climate is cool, subhumid, and importance of dietary studies to both conservation relatively aseasonal, with rainfall concentrated in efforts and snake evolutionary ecology, relatively June–September. Most vegetation in this valley few detailed studies of snake diets have been has been converted to agricultural use, and C.