CONWAY, Ark. (March 6, 2008) – A research letter written by
Hendrix assistant biology professor Dr. George R. Harper was
published in a recent issue of Nature magazine, a prestigious
honor for science scholars. Harper wrote the paper with Dr.
David W. Pfennig from the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill’s Department of Biology. Harper, an evolutionary biologist,
studied mimicry whereby non-poisonous snakes take on the
colorful characteristics of poisonous snakes in attempt to avoid
predators that typically don’t harm poisonous snakes. His
research focused on non-venomous scarlet king snakes that
closely resemble highly venomous eastern coral snakes – both
possess brightly colored rings of red, yellow and black
encircling the body. Predators avoid such tri-colored ring
patterns, possibly without previous experience, but Harper found
the non-poisonous mimics were more likely to be attractive to
predators because they reside outside an area where the
poisonous snakes they mimic reside. Harper’s results prov