but almost no snakes do. Few, if any fish or insects do, AFAIK. Indeed, the prevailing opinion among animal behaviorists for years was "very dogmatic that snakes weren't particularly social," says Harry Greene. "They courted, they mated, and that was it. Mothers abandoned the babies." Although Cornell University herpetologist Greene describes himself as a "total snakeophile," he says, "I was as blinkered as anybody else." But his view began to change one morning in 1995.
MATERNITY WARD. Pregnant timber rattlesnakes often congregate near protective rocks and bask for months before bearing live young.
Clark
"I was sitting in my house in Berkeley reading the newspaper when the phone rang," he begins. It was David Hardy, a retired Arizona anesthesiologist who worked with Greene on radio tracking black-tailed rattlesnakes. "His voice was practically quivering," Greene remembers. Hardy described a rare sighting of a rattler, accompanied by newborns. Even more surprising, the mother and young ones would remain together for more than a week.
The behavior of this radio-tagged mom, known to the scientists as superfemale 21, started Greene and Hardy toward revising their view of snake parenthood. They focus on pit vipers, the group that includes rattlesnakes and their relatives. Suddenly, old anecdotes and a rare study or two scattered throughout the literature became relevant.
Other snake watchers in the 1990s also began devising experiments to test interactions that earlier herpetologists never dreamed of, such as sisterly companionship. Snakes aren't planning cotillions, but many species seem to care for their young, hang out together when pregnant, and to associate with relatives, these researchers say.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/social_lives_snakes.html
Garter snakes are not loners see the video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVgReLN2g8k
Fish protect their young from predators and gain security by staying in schools for mutual protection and security.... Herding animals herd for that reason. Many birds do a similar thing.
Ants of all types, bees and wasps form colonies or hives and protect the nest with it's eggs and young.
Bees and wasps retreat to a hive for winter and the body heat from the whole swarm heats the hive.....I had a large hive in the back of my house and during the coldest times, I could see water vapor (steam) venting from the entrance to the hive...they all live on the honey stored in the hive.
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