Nick
I am curious as to whether or not you have any sources of info on efforts to classify the Canebrake as a separate subspecies. I have a two year old specimen, which basing on color pattern alone it is definitly distinct from northern subspecies I have encountered in Pennsylvania. I want to find out if color markings alone were the basis for the subspecies classification or if there were other differences noted
Matt
MCHKNY@msn.com
Matthew,
According to Klauber, horridus horridus has 23 dorsal scale rows, with an indistinct postocular dark stripe and a low degree of contrast between the pattern and body color. Horridus atricaudatus has generally 25 dorsal scale rows, with a distinct dark postocular stripe and sharp contrast between body color and pattern. Whether this information has been found to be false since his writing, I don't know...
-Nick
I just read the information in your LMK Memorial page. You mentioned a "Tucson Desert Museum". In the decades I've lived here in Tucson, I haven't discovered a place by this name. Did you mean the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, about 20 miles west of Tucson? It does sort of fit your description.
They do have a good collection, but they don't have the best display of that collection. They also have some top-notch herp people on their staff, but the politics of running a museum restrict what they (the herp people) can do. I used to do volunteer work for the museum, but gave it up because the politics disgusted me. At the time I left, they had the only captive breeding population of San Esteban Island Chuckwallas. They had a large, natural looking enclosure for them, a curator who wanted to run a major study on all aspects of territoriallity, courtship, and breeding, and a crew of volunteers to help with the study. A consultant on public zoo displays walked through the museum, and told the board of directors that "it didn't look good" to have the study animals on display. Zip. The study ended until the curator was able to come up with some other off-exhibit facilities.
There has been talk of them building another reptile display building, but I don't think that's in the immediate future. Meanwhile, (in agreement with a portion of your description) the already high entry fees keep going up, again based on what they are told by their zoo display consultant.
Changing topics slightly - I would suspect, from the nature of your homepage, that you keep or work with rattlesnakes. If so, what sort of work do you do with them?
Bill,
Thank you for the correction - I am talking about the ASDM. I looked and looked for the information I used to have about it, and couldn't find it, so I relied on my (faulty) memory. I have also since had correspondence from a herper who thought it was one of the two the best reptile collections he's seen. If I'm down your way again, I'll have to give it another try. Maybe I hit it on a bad day...
It is truly a sad thing when politics dictate funding and display. Unfortunately, it is something that reseach, education, and the arts share - the need to be subsidized, which means the need to ask for handouts, which means politics - the machine that decides distribution of funds - gets involved. (see http://www.kittycrack.net/dallett/me13.htm)
We just returned from a vacation in So. Cal., and we went to the San Diego Zoo, which had very well cared-for rattlers, but with very little labeling, so it was difficult to learn anything from the displays. One of the enclosures was labeled simply "rattlesnakes." Inside were several different species...
As for work, I am an animal control officer, but in an area where there are no poisonous snakes (Washington's Olympic Peninsula). So, I am mostly an armchair herper. On our trip, we did get to help a very pretty young c. ruber across the road in the Anza Borreo desert. Several cars stopped while we were at it, and it became an opportunity to educate! I grew up in Southern Cal., and was always warned away from them, so I suppose I'm rebelling against that fear in my adulthood (?).
I was wondering if you have heard of the Narcisse Snake Dens in Manitoba, Canada and if you know of any sites on this snake pit.
Anne,
I've never heard of them. When you find something out, let me know!
Hi Nick,
To settle a bet, would you please let me know how fast a rattlesnake can "run"?
My friend and I are debating on whether a man can outrun a rattlesnake, so a follow up question would be "How determined can a snake be to bite someone?"
Michael,
If a rattlesnake trained for months, it could probably reach the blinding speed of about 3 miles per hour. In other words, you could "outrun" it by walking your normal pace.
Rattlesnakes do not want to bite humans - they go out of their way to avoid it - so there is no reason they would be chasing you in the first place...
Nick,
There isn't much information on the Web re:rattlers.. found your site to be interesting and informative.
I'm a reporter from Indianapolis and I had heard that there were people in southern Indiana who are "snakecharmers" i.e. they use rattlesnakes as part of their worship,etc....
Got any information that could help me find the closest people who do this kind of stuff?????
Leon,
These folks ought to have the answers you need. Let me know what you find out - if you come up with an interesting report, I'll reprint it here.
(BTW, this information is off the list of herpetological societies at: http://netvet.wustl.edu/species/reptiles/herplist.txt)
I would like to ask if you know of any techniques of catching rattlers in the field and field dressing them, strictly for their meat? Wait, also is this poaching...? Thank you.
Dressing a snake for food is simple - skin the snake, and remove the head. The entrails come neatly out of the body cavity, leaving the meat, which should be cooked and eaten off the bones.
Personally, I don't feel that rattlers should be taken from the wild for food. While rattlesnakes are considered a nuisance in many places, they are wildlife, and as such are protected in many places. At least one species - the New Mexican ridgenosed rattler - is on the Endangered Species List.
Check with your State Department of Fish and Wildlife about whether it is legal to catch and kill rattlesnakes for food.
Sir; Is it legal to keep captive Rattlesnakes in California? I have recently accuired a Mojave. I have kept them before while living on my remote desert ranch. I am now living in a small Southern California High Desert town and I am now concerned about the legal aspects.
Thank You,
Joe,
Local laws and Ordinances regarding Exotic and/or Venomous pets vary greatly from one region to the next. You will need to check three places for this information. First, your state law (check with the State Department of Fish and Wildlife), next, the County law, and finally City or local law. Your nearest animal shelter or SPCA may be able to help you with these last two. Alternatively, you could check with a dealer who sells reptiles. A reputable dealer should be up on all aspects of law regarding exotics.
My goofy grandson brought into his house a 3 foot Pennsylvania rattler for his little girls to see. Which they did---and made appropriate little girl noises and so on. Quite naturally, the makeshift cage didn't cage very well and said snake was last seen entering the space between floor and ceiling below and now all ladies refuse to go home from mother's place and grandpap(me) has been summond to deal with the crises. I claim the snake doesn't want to be there and is probably gone and WON'T stay unless he has food and water and/or girl snakes..I know gasolene will drive him out( if he's there ) but that way is also a good way to burn down the house....Any suggestions or info will be greatly appreciated.....
Grampa Wolf,
Well, you are right, of course - he doesn't want to be there, and wants to leave. The bad news is that snakes will hide in dark corners for long periods of time, and sometimes emerge when least expected (causing little girl noises from grown men, sometimes). The good news is that if there is a way out, the snake has probably found it.
As for gasoline, it might drive it out, or it might just make it sick. And, as you note, there is the fire danger.
You might want to call your local animal control or nuisance wildlife specialist and get some more specialized information. I am not very familiar with extracting snakes from floors (although I have had snakes get away, and I suspect that is where they escaped to).
Nick,
I'm curious to know where you obtain your information? My dog recently was bit by a baby rattlesnake. She survived but is it true that babies have a more toxic venom than adults? I also discovered that my dog cannot have anti-venom twice. She apparently could have a violent reaction.
Tiffany -
It is generally taken as fact that baby rattlers have a more potent venom (although I don't know off the top of my head whether research supports this). It stands to reason that they would evolve that way, as the babies are the most vulnerable individuals in the population. That is balanced, though, by the relatively small amount of venom they are able to deliver (because they are so small). So, though your dog received what might have been a more potent venom, she received certainly less than she would have from an adult snake, all other things being equal.
As for my source of information, it is primarily Laurence Klauber's "Rattlesnakes: Their Habits, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind, which is the standard work on rattlesnakes. Other sources of information include my personal experience, common sense, other experts, and, in the case of dogs, four years experience as an animal control officer, which includes observation and performance of emergency veterinary procedures.
Your story was so interesting that it has earned its own space in the section of my page devoted to rattlesnake bites. You can link to it from HERE.
Hi Nick,
Have a question for you that actually comes from my parents. Here's what my dad e-mailed me:
Okay. Questions:
In any case, I hope you can help us out. We're eternally curious about the animals that we meet when we're outside.
And thanks for the great site you've put together. Really nice work.
Jody,
I have two words for you - Pituophis Melanoleucus!
Now, I can't be positive without seeing it, but that's probably what your dad saw - otherwise known as a gopher or bull snake. They do a very good job of imitating rattlesnakes - down to the practice of wiggling their tail very fast in the brush to make a rattling sound. The patterns are very similar, and the shape of the head is very similar. They are found throughout California.
The two things that gopher snakes lack are 1) Pits, and 2) Rattles (they also lack fangs and venom, but I'm just mentioning the things that you could check without a visit to the Emergency room). The pits are organs located in the front of the skull, and look like enormous nostrils. The rattles sometimes break off, but when they do, they leave behind a single blunt segment that is part of the tail. A gopher snake would have a tapered tail. Also, on rattlesnakes, the tail is very often banded with black and white. In gopher snakes, the body pattern continues down to the tail tip.
If it were a young rattlesnake, at 2 1/2 feet long, it would have already had a few rattles, unless it had the entire string broken off. Rattlesnakes gain a rattle segment every time they shed.
The two other pit vipers in the US - Cottonmouths and Copperheads - like to hang out east of the Rockies (probably because we call them names like Copperhead and Cottonmouth).
Just a reminder of the obvious - be extremely careful about any snake you're not sure of. Look it over carefully before you decide it's just a gopher snake and grab it :-)
Hope this helps...
Nick;
living on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in the hills, surrounded by brush, we get a lot of rattlers on our property each year. we are trying to get rid of them by killing off the rats and mice. In the meantime, it is necessary every once in awhile to remove a rattler from our patio. Do you have a source for snake handling tools? The ones I've seen have either pinchers or a noose at the end of a long rod...
Thanks for your help!
Or, even easier, a snake hook, which just slips under the snake (the snake then balances on the hook).
There are several sources of these items. Two that come to mind are Campbell Enterprises (Brush Prairie, Washington),
and Animal Care Equipment and Services (ACES), in Crestline, Ca: ACES can be reached at:
ACES (Animal Care Equipment & Services)
P.O. Box 3275
613 Leebert Way
Crestline, CA 92325
1-800-338-2237
Alternatively, you might be able to get these items at a store that specializes in exotic pets.
There is a whole web page of animal care and rehab supply sources at: http://www.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu/~devold/twrid/html/supply.htm
Best of luck!
Nick,
What steps does one take to preserve a rattlesnake skin? Thanks,
Michael,
Please see the information in my new section, "The rattlesnake as commodity."
A Texas rancher with a large colony of rattlesnakes is looking for places to market venom. He has experience handling snakes and will do the milking himself. Would you please respond it you know of any biological supply companies who would be interested in purchasing venom? Thank you!
Norma,
The only company I know of is Therapeutic Antibodies in Nashville, Tn. Perhaps my readers know of another...
A friend of mine in Palm Desert CA woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and without his contacts in, found what looked like a rope, draped over the toilet....he put his contacts in and took another look....... when he realized it was a rattlesnake in his bathroom, he slowly backed out of the room......... Is there any remedy to keep snakes out of the house? He heard he can put ammonia all around the outside of his house and that may help.....what are your suggestions?
- Weatherstripping.
Nick,
My home is in Tucson, AZ and backs up to a ravine at the foot of Pucsh Ridge in the Santa Catalina mountains. I recognize that part of the trade-off for our beautiful, unobstructed view is having "close encounters" with native wildlife. We've seen a Gila Monster, javelina, quail, roadrunners, rabbits, etc. Although our neighbors warned us about rattlers, we had never seen one until three weeks ago. Since then we have had a 31/2 foot rattlesnake in the front yard at dusk; a 4 foot bull snake in the back yard checking out our pet door; and lastly just three days ago, a 6 foot rattler in the front yard, again at dusk. We are currently in a drought here; even the cactus are suffering. We do have a pool, but the rattlers have all been in front. I know I can't necessarily prevent the rattlers, but is there something that might be attracting them specifically to our front yard? I have a 22 month old toddler, and we are more than a little nervous. If we are inadvertantly attracting the rattlers, I would very much like to know.
I enjoyed your web site. I got much more info there than I did from our local EMT's about emergency bite procedures, etc. Thanks.
Kathleen,
Thanks for the compliments!
Wild animals respond to three things - food, water, and shelter. So, if they are coming to your house, then they are looking for one or the other of those things, or a combination.
Another part of the puzzle is that depending on the time of year, rattlesnakes will be active at one particular time, when the temperature is in their preferred operating range (~65 to 80 degrees, give or take five or ten...)
Since it can be too hot for them during the day this time of year, they will often become active at dusk. This also happens to coincide with the peak activity of their favorite food source - rodents. So, if this has been happening since the weather got hot (3 weeks ago sounds right), it probably just indicates that you are seeing them when they are the most active.
My educated guess would be that you have rats or mice under your house, or around the yard. So, you are indirectly providing food for the snakes (both the rattlers and the bullsnakes - bet you start seeing king snakes too, which eat other snakes as well as rodents!). Hence, the way to discourage the snakes is to stop attracting the mice and rats.
The next question, of course, is what is attracting the mice and rats. I'll bet the pet door is near the kitchen :-). Or possibly near where you store the pet food. Or both. Start keeping the pet food in a covered trash bin. I'm sure an exterminator would be happy to consult with you by phone on how best to stop attracting rodents to the house. NOTE: You probably don't notice that you have rats and mice around. That's because you have snakes keeping the population under control!
Now - the big one. The pool. You live in an arid area (ever wonder, though, why they made those idiotic underpasses downtown that get flooded when it rains??), so water is at a premium. Just the scent of that water - the humidity it gives to the surrounding air - will be enough to attract every living critter in the desert to your back patio. If you picture your area from above, you can probably picture how snakes and javalinas and gila monsters and etc. and etc. would make a beeline for that humid air. Very likely those snakes in the front yard were on their way to the back yard.
This is all just educated guesses, based on knowledge, experience, and a good measure of intuition... Hope it is of some help. You might want to ask other pool owners around if they are experiencing the same thing.
This is not a question...just a thank you. Having encountered 2 timber rattlers within 2 hours on a backpacking trip last weekend (VA Blue Ridge), I realized that I was too ignorant for my own good! The first snake was sprawled across the trail and saw me before I saw it. When it coiled about 2 feet off the path, my companion and I felt pretty stupid...we had visions of those snakes on the Nature Channel in slo-mo flying thru the air to strike their victims. We had NO idea how close we could safely pass, and bushwacking off the trail and thru mountain laurel thickets was out of the question. We learned that after a 15 minute stand-off the snake would just leave.
Made it easier when we found another at our campsite. At least we knew by then that the snake wanted nothing to do with us and wasn't a threat as long as we didn't step on it in the dark!!
I've searched bookstores for more info...have been determined to know more about rattlers before our next trip!! I could find very little information about how to handle encounters and what to expect. Until I found your web site, that is.
So this is a very longwinded way to thank you for educating us. I'll be back for more visits and will share your web address with my hiking friends.
Sally,
I couldn't resist the temptation to strut your letter on the Ask Nick page. Thank you for the strokes!!!
I have a 4 year old and a 6mth old. My biggest concern is their safety. Do you have any info on fatilities from rattlesnake bites to children? I've also heard baby/small rattlesnakes are potentially deadly because they inject all of their venom - is this true? Final question: How far vertical (ie, up the leg) can a rattlesnake bite. Will boots protect me in the "brushy"/dense areas of my yard.
Thanks,
Dave,
I don't have any specific stats on bites to children, but I can give you some guidelines which might be more useful. The operant concept here is the ratio between amount of venom injected and body weight. Thus, the smaller the child, the greater the danger from any particular snake bite.
You are also correct about baby rattlers. Their venom is more potent, though they have very little of it compared to adult snakes. They are also more aggressive - nature's way of ensuring that they survive to adulthood.
Here is my advice for protecting your and your childrens' safety:
Nick,
Can a rattlesnake rattle while it's moving, or is it only possible for the snake to rattle while it is coiled?
Jim,
Well, kind of like the ability to rub one's tummy and pat one's head at the same time, this probably differs from snake to snake. I have seen snakes rattle as they run, but this was just a quick buzz, not an extended sizzle like a coiled snake. The rattle is generally used in conjunction with a flapping tongue and the coil, so I imagine the snake's physiology is set up to make it significantly easier to rattle for longer periods when in the defensive coil.
So, the simple answer is yes, a rattlesnake can rattle almost any time. But if the snake is aroused enough to rattle extensively, it will probably also assume the coil and other defensive displays.
Gary,
Rattlesnakes have a very high resistance to their own venom, but are not completely immune. when a rattlesnake is bitten by another rattlesnake, or if a rattlesnake accidentally bites itself, it is very likely that the wound will swell up just as it would in a human, but deaths due to this are probably very rare. So, the effects are halfway between your son's suggestions, i.e. it would hurt them, but probably not kill them.
We live in the southeast corner of South Dakota by the Missouri river across from Sioux City, Iowa. One of our neighbors reported seeing a rattlesnake in their grill and released it into the woods. We are concerned as we have two small children. Could you give us any information regarding how we might be able to protect and educate ourselves about the type of rattlesnake this might be. There's lots of old wives tales and we were looking for some factual information we could use to be more prepared
Steve,
In South Dakota, you're pretty much talking about the Western rattlesnake, C. Viridis.
You should teach your children not to approach strange snakes if they are at all unsure about whether they are safe, but also not to be afraid. Rattlesnakes do not chase or attack people. If the snake coils and rattles, the best approach is to stay still until the snake calms down, and then slowly back away.