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Shaz Zamore creates virtual reality for snakes: A day in the lab

This narrative was written in 2019 by Dr. Shaz Zamore for GRAD 5144, Communicating Science, as a response to an assignment to write a story about their research. At the time, Shaz was a post-doctoral research fellow in Jake Socha's lab at Virginia Tech. 

This photo shows a young woman wearing a light beige sweater, a pink and purple patterned scarf around her neck and dangling down her front, and a large snake around her neck. She has an "I voted" sticker on her sweater and is smiling at the camera and giving it a thumbs up.
Not everyone takes a pet snake with them on Election Day. Dr. Shaz Zamore did, no one objected, and they received their "I Voted" sticker. Their pet is not the snake species that they study in the lab.

As far as flying snakes go, Snake 85 is about average. He doesn’t boast the vibrant, jewel-red colors of his male peers. He isn’t especially large or small. He isn’t a standout glider, traveling farther out than he drops down. He isn’t particularly mean or shy. He’s pretty ordinary. For this reason, perhaps, he is an ideal candidate for testing out recent progress on a virtual reality arena.

    I study flying snakes, and although the snakes’ natural habitat is southeast Asia, I study them in a laboratory at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia. I can’t watch them gliding from tree to tree in their natural habitat, so I’ve been experimenting with various ways to analyze their movements and responses—like this virtual reality arena.

    The arena has been built especially so that flying snakes will feel like they’re flying or moving, while sitting perfectly still. Well, okay, not perfectly still; they get excited by all the visual action. So these guys hang out on a modified air hockey table, designed to produce enough upward force (lift) that they can slither and undulate, while staying in place. This way, they sense that they are not moving in place, but over vast distances. And maybe—just maybe—they’ll get that tingly feeling of flying!

    I’ve built this arena slowly, in pieces—the 3-foot walls that are projected upon, the table base the snakes slither over, and, of course, all the programming to make dazzling, bewitching scenes, like ones that look like they're moving through a tunnel, or navigating a dense forest floor. This all started about a year ago, each step carefully placed and tested. This day, my average little dude, Snake 85, was going to tell me how my progress was going.

    We weren’t alone, 85 and I. My undergraduate research assistant, Nicole, joined us that morning. It’s a big apparatus, and it takes at least two people to get everything just right. I chose this morning, when Nicole could come in, to show her what this project is all about. Seeing is believing, and creating a virtual world for snakes is way more exciting than reading papers and drawing conceptual illustrations, like the work she’d been involved in so far.

    On this morning, I felt confident and excited. This trial was going to go off without a hitch, I was certain! On this day, I was going to project scenes onto two walls, not just the one I’d been using to design scenes. And we were going to combine the air table with visual images for the first time.

    We collected 85 from his cage. He was sleeping under his hide box, all nestled and unaware. He didn’t appreciate my rude and abrupt wake up call, so we placed him in a bag, where he would feel calm and safe while we set up the virtual reality arena.

    The blinds were drawn, the brilliant autumn sun blocked out.

    The lights were turned off.

    Huge black curtains were drawn around the entire arena.

    The projectors turned on, and the room glowed with a soothing purple.

    We pulled 85 out of the bag. He was much calmer, alert but relaxed. We placed a special marker on his head, so we could track his movements and monitor his reaction. Then, very carefully, we placed him in the virtual reality arena.

    We set up a rotating stimulus across two juxtaposed screens. Black and white vertical stripes smoothly glossed from left to right. We were aiming to produce the effect of whole field movement, like what you see when you look out a car window while driving on a highway. This stimulus creates a visual reflexive behavior, called nystagmus, which is a great way to check  if the animal is paying attention and  responding to what you hope it's responding to.

    Nicole and I watched with anticipation for a response.

    85 lifted his head and moved toward the screen. After almost a minute, he started tracking the smooth motion with his head. A success! He showed all the signs we expected. Did he think he was in a big cylindrical drum, with all these stripes rotating around him? That was the hope.

    Excited by this behavior, I decided to switch the direction of rotation. Instead of from left to right, we would try down to up, the same direction of motion he would see if he were falling.

    The upward rotation started. Immediately, 85 darted to a corner of the screen, his tongue stuck straight out, like a hard-concentrating child. He reached the edge of the table and lifted up the front third of his body.

    Nicole and I covered our mouths at the same time. What an energetic response! Intrigued, I switched the rotation, so it looked to the snake as if he were moving upward. His head smoothly lowered, and he rustled onto the table. I changed directions again, to the falling-sensation stripes, and—yes!—he lifted up his head!

    Here we had it: a direct response to visual movement that I could control with the press of a button! I had expected results, but nothing like this.

    We finally turned on the air under the table—the last component to test. The sudden push of air startled Snake 85, and he moved about in a panic. After a few moments he calmed down and again looked at the two illuminated walls. Then he started to undulate like a sidewinder, picking up the bends in his s-like form. Did he think he was flying? He certainly looked like he was flying—except for the fact that he was lying on an air hockey table.

    After a few moments, we turned everything off. This kind of stimulation is exhausting for a snake. But we had our first data sample. Our average, ordinary Snake 85 was starting to show signs that he was really flying! We would of course have to repeat these tests, with him and with his slithering buddies in our colony. Who knows what we will see when we have all four screens in place?