Henderson (1974), Lang (1969), and Saint-Girons (1964) used 

 combined clipping methodologies, but did not provide full details 

 on the numbering protocol. 



The disadvantages of all clipping methods are the time 

 reguired to mark each snake, the freguently drawing blood and 

 possibility of infection, and the difficulty in marking small 

 snakes (Weary, 1969) . 



Most recent researchers favor the combined ventral-subcaudal 

 methodology of Prestt (1971) and Brown and Parker (1984) . This 

 method has been used successfully in studies on the population 

 dynamics of colubrids and viperids (e.g. Brown and Parker, 1984; 

 Feaver, 1977; Parker and Brown, 1974 a,b, 1980; Prestt, 1971; 

 Spellerberg and Phelps, 1977) . 



Tags 



Metal tags (4) . 



Hirth (1966) was the first to attach tags to snakes. He used 

 uniguely numbered stainless steel tags clamped to the corner of 

 the mouth. Fortunately, this location has not been used 

 subseguently. Voris et al . (1983) attached numbered metal tags to 

 the tail tips of sea snakes. He discontinued the tagging when it 

 became apparent that the tags collected debris, wore holes in the 

 tails, and were often lost. 



Plastic plugs (5) . 



Pough (1970) described the use of colored plastic plugs or 

 serially numbered metal tags attached to the tail via a buttoner 

 device. The technigue is presumably a guick and permanent method 

 of marking snakes. The tags were partially inserted into the caudal 

 musculature through the lateral subcaudal scales. Those inserted 

 into ventral scales fell off. Plugs cannot be attached to snakes 

 smaller than 2 50 mm SV. During Pough' s studies there was no 

 evidence of infection nor any indication that the plug interferes 

 with shedding or locomotion. 



Plastic disk (6) . 



Pendlebury (1972) initiated the attachment of colored disks 

 to rattlesnake's rattles. A pair of disks are sewn on either side 

 of the basal rattle segment. With the use of a pair of disks in ten 

 color combinations 100 specimens can be uniguely marked. Two pairs 

 of disks on each snake allows 10,000 unigue combinations. This 

 method, although limited to studies of rattlesnakes, has been used 

 successfully by JACOB and Painter (1980) , Reinert and Kodrich 

 (1982), Stark (1984) and Brown et al. (1984). 



