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Rattlesnakes
Last updated on Wednesday, January 01, 2003
The biggest rattlesnake that I've ever seen was also the first one that I remember. Years ago, my brother and I nearly stumbled over a huge rattler, a grandmother of snakes, sunning herself on a patch of bare sandstone. Her heavy body was as big around as my forearm and looked to be over six feet long.
New Mexico diamond back rattlesnakes Photo by Don Lovell. The Southwest is rattlesnake country. Eleven species, ranging in size from one to seven feet long, live in northern Mexico and the United State's Southwest, more than in any other region of the Americas.
Rattlesnakes are pit vipers, named for their loreal pits - heat-sensitive depressions on either side of their head behind their nostril. Loreal pits allow the snake to "see" potential prey in total darkness by picking up its body heat. These sensory organs are so acute that a rattler can detect the body heat of a mouse up to 12 inches away!
Rattlesnakes come equipped with a venom-dispensing mechanism that is among the most sophisticated of all snakes'. Hollow fangs folded back at the front of their upper jaw swing down and forward when a rattler bites, stabbing and dripping venom in a single swift thrust. Rattlers' neurotoxic venom serves to subdue their prey, and also as self-defense. Rattlesnakes hunt and eat a wide variety of prey, mostly rodents such as mice and kangaroo rats, but also other small mammals, birds, lizards, and frogs. Their broad, triangular heads are designed to accommodate articulated jaws which open many times as wide as human jaws, allowing rattlers to swallow prey as large as prairie dogs whole.
Loosely interlocking horny segments ending their tail form rattlesnake's "rattles." (In Spanish they are called cascabeles, "little bells.") Because rattlers are large and heavy-bodied, they cannot race away swiftly as can smaller, slender snakes. Hence the buzzing warning and coiled stance that says clearly: "Back off!" The vibrating rattles can sound like dry leaves cracking, a cicada¹s slow clicking, or the clattering of castanets.
Some people kill rattlesnakes whenever they see them. I don't understand that. Yes, rattlers are dangerous, but they are not usually aggressive. If you stay out of their way, they will stay out of yours. Further, the likelihood of being killed by a venomous animal like a rattler is slim: You are twenty times more likely to be struck by lightning and 300 times more likely to be murdered by a fellow human being. Too, these big snakes are a vital part of the fabric of arid-country ecosystems: by consuming rodents, they keep these animals from multiplying to the point that they overgraze their habitat.
I don't remember now how long my brother and I stood, hardly breathing, watching the big rattler those years ago. But I can still picture the snake clearly. She was a beauty. I hope that she lived a long life.
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