Many species of birds use shed snake skin in nest construction, but this behavior is poorly understood. In new research, ornithologists at Cornell University used comparative and experimental approaches to suggest that the evolution of this behavior is mediated by nest morphology and predator communities. They used a series of experiments and comparisons to test four hypotheses whereby snake skin could award fitness benefits (nest predation, nest microbiotas, nest ectoparasites, social signaling) and found support for the predation hypothesis.
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