At a Glance
- Puff adders have been shown to drastically increase their food intake during rodent outbreaks, making them highly effective natural predators compared to traditional mammalian pest controllers.
- These snakes can consume up to 10 rodents in one feeding and continue providing pest control without ongoing feeding, making them a cost-free solution for farmers.
- The study introduced the “factorial scope of ingestion” to quantify how puff adders adaptively scale their food consumption in response to rodent population surges.
- Maintaining puff adder populations could help reduce reliance on chemical pesticides and prevent significant crop losses from rodent infestations.
- The findings encourage a reevaluation of snakes’ ecological roles and advocate for their inclusion in conservation strategies that benefit agriculture and biodiversity.
New research from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has revealed that puff adders (Bitis arietans), a venomous snake species, can effectively control rodent populations that damage crops. The study, published in Scientific Reports, shows that puff adders can increase food consumption by more than 12 times their normal intake during rodent outbreaks, making them far more efficient than traditional mammalian predators like weasels or lynx.
Puff adders can consume up to 10 rodents in a single feeding session, and because they can go without food for extended periods, they provide continuous pest control without any cost to farmers. The study highlights how puff adders’ ability to adapt to changing prey abundance allows them to help manage rodent numbers naturally, especially during years with high rainfall, when rodent populations tend to spike and cause significant crop damage.
The research also introduced a new measure called the “factorial scope of ingestion,” which calculates how much a predator can increase its food intake above its regular consumption. This metric allowed the researchers to show that puff adders can increase their consumption during periods of high rodent abundance, helping to keep pest populations in check. The results suggest that maintaining healthy puff adder populations could significantly reduce crop losses from rodents without expensive chemical pesticides.
This study challenges the traditional view of snakes as pests and presents them as valuable contributors to ecosystem health and agricultural productivity. The findings emphasize the importance of protecting snake populations, particularly puff adders, as a natural and sustainable form of pest control. Researchers believe that including puff adders in conservation management plans could support farming and biodiversity efforts across Africa.
References
- Wits University. (2025, May 20). One of Africa’s most widespread snakes could be an agricultural hero in disguise. Phys.Org; Wits University. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-africa-widespread-snakes-agricultural-hero.html
- Alexander, G. J. (2025). Factorial scope of ingestion and the potential functional response of puff adders (Bitis arietans) to high prey abundance. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 16579. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-99550-3
