Masters of Science / African brown house snakes (Boaedon capensis) are widely thought to be dietary specialists
that predominantly consume rodents. Given their ubiquitous distribution, these snakes
potentially play an important role in controlling rodent populations throughout their range.
However, the full extent of the diet of this species remains poorly quantified, and the
proportional importance of mammals to their diet is speculative. Moreover, little is known
regarding intraspecific dietary variation of these snakes. In recent years, a dearth of reports of
B. capensis feeding, particularly from novel information-sharing streams available through
social media, suggests that the diet of these snakes may be broader than previously thought.
B. capensis are not rodent specialists as amphibians (3%), birds (12%), and reptiles (38%)
collectively comprise a significant proportion of their diet. There was no evidence for sexual
size dimorphism or dietary variation between adult males and females. However, significant
differences in morphology and prey utilisation between adults and juveniles indicate an
ontogenetic shift in diet from small lizards to larger, and more diverse prey. Variation in
climate and time of year did not affect diet. Importantly, the diet of B. capensis as presented
by museum data vastly differed compared to literature and community science reports. In
particular, the proportional use of reptiles differed across sources (museum data = 6%;
community science data = 27%). Overall, my findings reiterate the importance of examining
multiple sources of information when characterizing the diet of species, as these multiple
sources provide different result outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/8709 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Bassier, Ielhaam |
| Contributors | Maritz, Bryan |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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