Dekay's Brownsnakes are generally small and inconspicuous reptiles, spending their days hiding under rocks and chasing after critters like slugs and earthworms. Yesterday I flipped over a rock in my yard and to my surprise, found this year's first live Dekay's, a relatively small juvenile (based on size, most likely). I decided to set up a temporary enclosure in a Tupperware to observe its behavior overnight and into the next day, when I would release it back where I found it.
In the first few hours of captivity it stayed above the surface, doing laps around the perimeter. Later that day when I went to check on it, it was nowhere to be found. A quick glance at the sides of the enclosure revealed that it had actually burrowed underneath the substrate and was hiding in a little tunnel it had created. Sometimes it would stick its head out from one end of the rock while its body was curled up under it, and other times it was curled up tightly in one of its tunnels. The tunnels did not ever collapse and were visible from the sides along the Tupperware. I imagine that it either made a web of tunnels across the entire enclosure or just one that wrapped around the sides. It spent a large portion of its time underground, resting and slithering through the tunnel system.
I am not entirely sure about the reasons for its burrowing, but I came up with a list of potential ones. The reason is probably a combination of them.
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