Preferências alimentares e comportamento alimentar de Micrurus frontalis em cativeiro (Serpente: Elapidae) no Museu Biológico do Instituto Butantan

Abstract

The genus Micrurus is represented in Brazil by 39 species, distributed in different environments. These Snakes are difficult to adapt to captivity, mainly due to habitat and food preferences. Success in maintaining captivity of Micrurus is important in different aspects: expanding knowledge of biology and behavior, providing greater amounts of poison, essential for the production of antielapidic serum and also for research; contribute to the conservation of genre Micrurus. The objective of this work was to analyze possible feeding preferences, and the feeding behavior of the species Micrurus frontalis in captivity. An adult male of M. frontalis was studied over 19 months, who received preferential feeding every seven days, and different aspects were analyzed that could point out possible feeding preferences, in addition to predatory and captive feeding behavior. We conclude that M. frontalis spontaneously accepted a wide variety of species as prey, showing restrictions and preferences; we recorded a great amplitude in the size of the prey ingested; the mass of the prey seems to be a limiting factor for the successful ingestion of the food; the species uses active foraging to capture its prey; the predatory sting and seizure behavior was more used than the sting and release; no direct relationship was observed between the length and mass of the prey and the time of death and ingestion; the results directly contribute to improving the maintenance of the species in captivity, whose poison enters the composition of the Antielapidic Serum.