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From Faye Flam’s column this week:
Reptiles really do rely on pheromones more than any other vertebrate class, and scientists really have used pheromones to alter their behavior. The one subtle difference: In the movie, the snakes were induced to attack people; in the real world, scientists made otherwise heterosexual male snakes jump on other males. [...]
It’s a little-appreciated fact that Snakes on a Plane is based on a true story. In the real version, brown tree snakes normally native to Australia or New Guinea stowed away on planes during World War II, invaded Guam, and ate all the songbirds. Today the invasive snake still terrorizes people on Guam and has spread to Hawaii, where it threatens the bird population.
This is just one reason we need scientists to study snakes and their pheromone-driven sex lives.
Of course, the screenwriter had to change the story a bit.
And if you were to nitpick, true pheromones communicate within a single species, Mason says. In the movie, cobras and rattlesnakes and pythons all reacted to “the pheromone,” which was, herpetologically speaking, ridiculous.
So, for those of you who saw Snakes on a Plane and left the theater going, “Hmm. I wonder if that could actually happen…” you now have your answer: Uhh, maybe
Faye Flam | Snakes can manipulate that come-slither smell [Inky]
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