Cottonmouth Litter Size. 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. The data in the following table, based on the results of the researchers’ study, give the number of young per litter for 24 female cottonmouths in Florida and 44 female cottonmouths in Virginia.

Florida Virginia 867 5 12 7 7 6 8 743 12 9 7 4 9 6 175 12 7 5 6 10 3 665 10 8 8 12 5 6 685 10 11 3 8 4 5 574 7 6 11 7 6 8 665 8 14 8 7 11 7 554 5 4 Preliminary data analyses indicate that you can reasonably presume that litter sizes of cottonmouths in both states are approximately normally distributed. At the 1% significance level, do the data provide sufficient evidence to conclude that, on average, the number of young per litter of cottonmouths in Florida is less than that in Virginia? Do not assume that the population standard deviations are equal. (Note:

x¯1 = 5.46, s1 = 1.59, x¯2 = 7.59, and s2 = 2.68.)