Timber rattlesnakes can identify their siblings by scent, according to a new study that adds a bit more evidence to the notion that snakes — “often regarded as the least social of all vertebrates” — might be more social than we thought. Add that to the tendency of snakes — rattlers, garters, ringnecks — to agglomerate when basking or hibernating, and the evidence that, for example, newborn black-tailed rattlers hang around their mothers for the first two weeks after birth.

Now here’s the question: if snakes can recognize siblings by scent, what are they thinking when reptile keepers breed related pairs?