Studying snakes to predict earthquakes

THE EAGLE – Studying snakes to predict earthquakes – The study in which researchers from the Department of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ collaborated also involves the German ‘Max Planck Institute’.

This is what we learn on the institutional website of the University of Bari. The input to undertake research was the observation of anomalous snake activity during the L’Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009.

The study also involves our land since the biologist specialized in herpetology (branch of zoology that studies reptiles and amphibians), Gianpaolo Montinaro, together with doctor Ernesto Filippi and veterinarian Pasqualino Piro have been engaged in snake monitoring for 12 years within the scope of Serpari festival of Cocullo.

During the festival which has taken place on May 1st for over 500 years, the snakes captured in the wild by the serpents are carried in procession to the statue of San Domenico, protector from the bites of snakes and rabid dogs. Once the procession is over, the animals are released into the wild and then captured again year after year.

“Since last year – we read on the UniBa website – the research group of colleagues Montinaro and Filippi have been joined by profs. Jairo Alfonso Mendoza Roldan and Domenico Otranto, parasitologists at the Department of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Bari Aldo Moro.

The study, published in an important journal that deals with neglected human diseases, was an opportunity to enter a magical world, made up of stories and narratives, in a sacred-profane dimension with fairy-tale contours, in the small village of Cocullo .

In a few days, based on the experience made in Cocullo in 2023, in collaboration with Dr Martin Wikelski, director of the Department of Animal Behavior and researcher Uschi Müller of the Max Planck Institute (MPI), a study will be started on the sensitivity of snakes to seismic movements within the Icarus global project (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space).

The project is based on the observation of the movements and behaviors of numerous animal species in relation to natural disasters, such as earthquakes.”

The professor. Mendoza will therefore be in Cocullo during the festival to insert a small transmitter into some specimens of Cerrone (Elaphe quatuorlineata).

In this way we will monitor not only the seismological activities through satellite technology but also the health of the snakes in their natural environment.

Predicting earthquakes by observing snakes is not new, however, in China. The scientist Jiang Weisong spoke about it as early as 2007, having detected anomalous behavior in reptiles during catastrophic natural events, observing that these animals tried to save themselves by throwing themselves against the walls of the cages in which they were kept, to get out.