Question

In the article “The Eastern Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) at the Northern Edge of Its Range” (Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 391-398), C. Blem and L. Blem examined the reproductive characteristics of the eastern cottonmouth snake. The data, provided in the attached file, give the number of young per litter for 24 female cottonmouths in Florida and 44 female cottonmouths in Virginia. Preliminary data analyses indicate that you can reasonably presume that the litter sizes of cottonmouths in both states are well approximated by the normal distribution.

The data are available in the following data set: Assessment 11 Data Set

FLORIDA	8	6	7	7	4	3	1	7	5	6	6	5	6	8	5	5	7	4	6	6	5	5	5	4
VIRGINIA	5	12	7	7	6	8	12	9	7	4	9	6	12	7	5	6	10	3	10	8	8	12	5	6	10	11	3	8	4	5	7	6	11	7	6	8	8	14	8	7	11	7	5	4

a. Construct a side-by-side boxplot of litter size for the two states. Does the graph suggest any potential problems with the data?

		No, there are no potential problems with the data.
		Yes, there are outliers in the data for both states.
		Yes, there is an outlier in the data for Virginia.
		Yes, there is an outlier in the data for Florida.

b. Based on the graph constructed in problem 1, do the population means (litter size) appear to be equal for the two states?

		No, the mean litter size for Florida appears to be larger than Virginia’s mean litter size
		The construction of side-by-side boxplots is not appropriate for this type of data.
		No, the mean litter size for Virginia appears to be larger than Florida’s mean litter size
		Yes, the means appear to be equal.

Answer 1