Dr. Gordon Schuett, one of the Directors of the Chiricahua Desert Museum Scientific Advisory Board, has been studying Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes in Arizona for over a decade. Dr. Schuett is also a Director of one of our Research Affiliates, the Copperhead Institute. You can read more about the
Institute here.
Dr. Chuck Smith, a member of the Chiricahua Desert Museum Scientific Advisory Board, has been studying a population of Northern Copperhead Snakes in the central Connecticut River Valley since 2001. He and his collaborators have gathered valuable data that has provided insights into the natural history, behavior, reproduction, and physiology of these often misunderstood animals. Dr. Smith is also a Director of one of our Research Affiliates, the Copperhead Institute. You can read more about the research and view publications of the Institute here.
Dr. Gordon Schuett has been conducting a long-term field study of Gila Monsters in Arizona, focusing in part on the effects of urbanization. Here, a group of young researchers assist Dr. Schuett in collecting samples from one of his study animals.
The Copperhead Institute is a non-profit research organization devoted to the study of pitviper snakes and is also a Research Affiliate of the Chiricahua Desert Museum. Each Fall, the Institute enters a number of their adult research animals into hibernation, bringing the temperature of the environmental chamber slowly down to 45 degrees, and increasing the temperature slowly in the Spring. Time lapse infrared video shows the post-hibernation snakes emerging as the temperature of the chamber is incrementally raised.