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Spatial Learning Of An Escape Task By Young Corn Snakes, Elaphe Guttata Guttata, David A. Holtzman, Terrence W. Haris, Guillermo Aranguren, Elizabeth Bostock

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Spatial learning is critical to most animals for many behaviours necessary to survival. In vertebrates, most studies on spatial learning and memory have been conducted in mammalian and avian species with few studies on reptiles. We examined spatial learning in the corn snake, Elaphe guttata guttata by training 17 young snakes to find the one open shelter in an eight-hole arena, where the entrance was not visible from the arena surface. Over a 16-trial, 4-day training period, snakes showed (1) a significant decrease in the mean latency to the goal, (2) a significant decrease in the mean total distance travelled, …