Newborn young of three sympatric species of water snakes (Natrix) were tested with water extracts of a variety of small animals including fish, earthworms, amphibians, slugs, crickets, baby mice, and crayfish. N. s. sipedon responded with increased tongue flicking only to fish and amphibian extracts. N. grahamii and N. septemvittata responded only to crayfish extracts, and most strongly to extracts prepared from newly molted crayfish.
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Gordon M. Burghardt (1968) studied this question.
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