In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.

He Dog, .....................Green Rattlesnakes?

KenK/84BravoKenK/84Bravo Member Posts: 12,055 ✭✭✭✭
edited April 2019 in General Discussion
Had a disturbing dream last night, about/involving Rattlesnakes. We have quite a few Eastern Timber Rattlesnakes in this vicinity. Quite a few large ones, (36", 39") have been killed in very close proximity to my house/residence.

The ones locally are a fairly dark green coloration that I have never encountered/seen before.

Any experience with these?

Comments

  • spasmcreekspasmcreek Member Posts: 37,724 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    is there an overlap of species that breeds a little diff ???? have two species of copperheads territory overlap around our lake place and i have seen a couple looked a little diff than the book pics...all just as nasty and almost impossible to spot in oak leaves
  • KenK/84BravoKenK/84Bravo Member Posts: 12,055 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Lots of Copperheads around here also. Seems to be Snake Haven.

    My next door neighbor/Buddy kills them on a regular basis sunning on his deck.

    The Copperheads scare me more than the Rattlesnakes. Blend perfectly in to the leaves/woods.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    No experience in your part of the world, my experience with timbers is in the mid-west. There can be a good bit of subtle variation in the species, largely based on the geology of their habitat. Over time those that blend in better in a given area tend to survive better than those that stand out, so the population of the area tends to become more cryptic over time. Where the soil is lighter or reddish they tend to become shaded more like that soil. Where it is dark and loamy they tend to be darker. Some populations show a sometimes pretty vivid rust colored stripe running mid-dorsally. Those used to be called canebrake rattlesnakes and were described as a sub-species, but the trait kept popping up and being reported in populations outside their described range. Genetic work has shown they are genetically indistinguishable from other timbers, just a variation in color. In much of their range there is no other rattlesnake species they could interbreed with and where others do occur they are a different genus, so interbreeding is very highly unlikely.

    I cannot say I have seen any greenish timbers, but I have very limited experience in the SE.

    Copperheads are one of my favorite species to work with. I use to keep specimens of intergrades of two sub-species, the broad banded and the Trans-Pecos. Just gorgeous snakes. Widly spaced dark bands with a flame pattern rising from the belly in the lighter interspaces.
  • HessianHessian Member Posts: 248
    edited November -1
    I caught Rattlesnakes for the UCLA biology/med research center back in the early 70's. I've seen a lot of color variations. I saw a Western Diamondback that was almost totally matt black, you could barely make out the typical pattern, Like mentioned they adapt to their surroundings, I found the black one in an ancient lava field. The Biology/Med center was especially interested in the oddballs. Two main types of toxins, sometimes they interbreed and have odd toxins.
    In Kentucky I saw a Rattler that was almost lime green, but had the typical Diamondback markings, they were just subdued. It was a baby Rattler, maybe eight inches long, some * was holding it coiled in his hand poking it with a stick. It didn't have any rattles but was shaking its tail like crazy. No mistaking that head shape and the subdued pattern though, just an oddball color.
  • mnrivrat48mnrivrat48 Member Posts: 1,711 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    "Rattler, maybe eight inches long, some * was holding it coiled in his hand poking it with a stick."

    Well you got his name right for sure. I always heard the smaller ones will hit you with all the venom they got making them worse that the mature snake who saves some for reserve ? Snakes not an issue here in south central Minnesota. My brother lives in north west AZ where we encounter * tail rattlers. When my health was better I general spent winter months there but encounters one in early spring before I left one year. March
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Hessian wrote:
    I caught Rattlesnakes for the UCLA biology/med research center back in the early 70's. I've seen a lot of color variations. I saw a Western Diamondback that was almost totally matt black, you could barely make out the typical pattern, Like mentioned they adapt to their surroundings, I found the black one in an ancient lava field. The Biology/Med center was especially interested in the oddballs. Two main types of toxins, sometimes they interbreed and have odd toxins.
    In Kentucky I saw a Rattler that was almost lime green, but had the typical Diamondback markings, they were just subdued. It was a baby Rattler, maybe eight inches long, some * was holding it coiled in his hand poking it with a stick. It didn't have any rattles but was shaking its tail like crazy. No mistaking that head shape and the subdued pattern though, just an oddball color.


    Neither of the diamondback species occurs in Kentucky, though the timber rattle snake does. Also the massasauga and the pigmy rattlers occur there, and the pigmy is extremely variable in coloration.

    The two differing venoms would refer to the Mojave rattlesnake, which does indeed have two populations with chemically differing venoms with different actions. They are well outside 84Bravos area however.

    With regard to size and venom, if you are going to be bitten, choose the baby. The venom toxicity is the same juvenile or adult, but the total available volume is far less for a juvenile. Every aspect of the bite is under the voluntary control of the snake, so there may be no venom injected or a whalloping dose. Some times the fangs are not even erected, or only one. In Colombia, SA where bites of venomous snakes are common among agricultural workers, a full 80% result in no envenomation, usually called 'dry bites'. Nothing can be said to be a general rule about bites of juveniles except that even in the worst case bite, they have less venom and it is no more potent than that of an adult.
  • HessianHessian Member Posts: 248
    edited November -1
    He Dog wrote:
    Hessian wrote:
    I caught Rattlesnakes for the UCLA biology/med research center back in the early 70's. I've seen a lot of color variations. I saw a Western Diamondback that was almost totally matt black, you could barely make out the typical pattern, Like mentioned they adapt to their surroundings, I found the black one in an ancient lava field. The Biology/Med center was especially interested in the oddballs. Two main types of toxins, sometimes they interbreed and have odd toxins.
    In Kentucky I saw a Rattler that was almost lime green, but had the typical Diamondback markings, they were just subdued. It was a baby Rattler, maybe eight inches long, some * was holding it coiled in his hand poking it with a stick. It didn't have any rattles but was shaking its tail like crazy. No mistaking that head shape and the subdued pattern though, just an oddball color.



    Neither of the diamondback species occurs in Kentucky, though the timber rattle snake does. Also the massasauga and the pigmy rattlers occur there, and the pigmy is extremely variable in coloration.

    The two differing venoms would refer to the Mojave rattlesnake, which does indeed have two populations with chemically differing venoms with different actions. They are well outside 84Bravos area however.

    With regard to size and venom, if you are going to be bitten, choose the baby. The venom toxicity is the same juvenile or adult, but the total available volume is far less for a juvenile. Every aspect of the bite is under the voluntary control of the snake, so there may be no venom injected or a whalloping dose. Some times the fangs are not even erected, or only one. In Colombia, SA where bites of venomous snakes are common among agricultural workers, a full 80% result in no envenomation, usually called 'dry bites'. Nothing can be said to be a general rule about bites of juveniles except that even in the worst case bite, they have less venom and it is no more potent than that of an adult.

    I'm a west coaster and was just in Kentucky for a few months. Could have been Massasauga or even a Gopher snake if it wasn't for the head shape. The markings were hard to make out, the colors where subdued. But it was shades of green and yellow green, the green is the thing I remembered most, almost lime green. It did have a subdued cross hatch pattern common in Diamondbacks and Gopher snakes or Bull snakes, from pictures the Massasauga has a similar pattern.
  • KenK/84BravoKenK/84Bravo Member Posts: 12,055 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    This is/was not a "Lime Green." More of a very dark green coloration. Very unusual.


    Although I think Copperheads are a Beautiful snake. I worry about them the most around here. They are in abundance, my next door neighbor/ Buddy kills them sunning on his porch on a regular basis. I've yet to see one on my property. Encountering one in the woods, (all around my house) you would be hard pressed to spot one lying still.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    from pictures the Massasauga has a similar pattern.

    They do have a pattern of blotches down the back, kinda, sorta squarish. Typically they are pretty gray, but who knows? Another possibility might be an eastern hognose snake.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Prairie rattlers can be variable, though I have never seen one I would call green. I have seen them in Wyoming and SE Colorado, but not around your area. They are not found in the SE US where Ken lives.
  • mrmike08075mrmike08075 Member Posts: 10,998 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    And so close we are to Saint Patrick's day - and the driving out of serpents with shillelaghs and shamrocks Irish blackthorn walking sticks from ancient east wicklow with tin whistles - Saint Michael himself slaying dragons with claymores

    Cudgels and knobkerries - Doyle clan stick fighting bataireacht of nadabula - Shepard's hook handles - Osage orange knobs - makhilas and Celtic knot ash poles - scurge kukris

    Green rattlesnakes are still a common threat in county cork...

    Mike
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    In actuality snakes never made it across the cold north sea to that particular island. St. Paddy never saw a snake most likely. He was married to his very young cousin, casting considerable doubt upon his sainthood in my mind, but I am not fan of the Pope either so what do I know? :twisted:
  • mrmike08075mrmike08075 Member Posts: 10,998 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Legend has it that, back in the fifth century A.D., St. Patrick exterminated Ireland?s snakes by driving them into the sea. He would appear to have done a thorough job, because Ireland is free of native snakes to this day.


    Except, Ireland never actually had snakes. Everything you?ve been told about St. Patrick's Day is a lie. (Ok, probably not all of it.)

    So, if snakes can be found almost everywhere else the world, from Australia to the Arctic Circle, what makes Ireland so special?


    WHERE SNAKES LIVE

    Wikimedia Commons

    For one, it?s an island. The Irish Sea is 50-plus miles wide. That would be a long swim for a land animal. A sea snake might have an easier time of it, but sea snakes live in warm tropical waters, not the frigid Atlantic.


    But, you may be thinking, the U.K. has snakes, and it?s an island. That?s true. But for a long time, neither Britain nor Ireland was home to snakes. The Ice Age made the islands inhospitable to reptiles, whose cold-blooded bodies need heat from the surroundings to function. The glaciers retreated around 10,000 years ago, exposing a land bridge between Europe and Britain, and another between Britain and Ireland, allowing easy passage to the islands. Melting glaciers drowned Ireland?s land bridge 8,500 years ago, whereas Britain?s persisted for another 2,000 years. So animals from Europe simply had more time to colonize the U.K., and even then only three snake species managed to establish themselves in Britain. None of the three appears to have felt compelled to keep moving west toward Ireland; there's no evidence for the slithering reptiles in Ireland's fossil record.


    ST. PATRICK STEPS ON A SNAKE

    Andreas Franz Borchert via Flickr CC By SA 2.0

    Other islands that don?t have snakes include New Zealand, Hawaii, Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica. Still, the absence of snakes does seem somewhat miraculous, given the global pet trade and the serpents? potential to become invasive.

    In Guam, the invasive brown tree snake has become so pervasive, decimating the island?s native bird populations, that local authorities have resorted to desperate measures to try to eradicate the slithering fiends. In December 2013, for the fourth time, the USDA dumped dead mice from helicopters onto Guam. The mice were laced with a high enough dose of acetaminophen (the main ingredient in Tylenol) to kill a snake that eats one. The airdrops have been successful, but they cull the snake population only temporarily.

    It?s plausible that Ireland could one day find itself in a similar situation. Though the brown tree snake was accidentally brought to Guam, new snake species are being introduced to Ireland on purpose. Pet snakes are not banned in Ireland, as they are in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Iceland.

    Pet snakes became a status symbol during Ireland?s economic boom in the late 1990s, but during the 2008 recession and afterward, tough times meant lots of people set their snakes loose. The snakes turned up in a lot of random places, but so far they haven?t seemed to spread far in the wild.

    Let?s hope it stays that way. Because if Guam is any example, if snakes ever do take hold in Ireland, it would take a lot more than a wave of St. Patrick?s staff to get rid of them.
  • mrmike08075mrmike08075 Member Posts: 10,998 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    He Dog wrote:
    In actuality snakes never made it across the cold north sea to that particular island. St. Paddy never saw a snake most likely. He was married to his very young cousin, casting considerable doubt upon his sainthood in my mind, but I am not fan of the Pope either so what do I know? :twisted:

    Oh you said "Pope" and referenced marrying a young cousin and I had a spontaneous episode of dyslexia and thought you said "Poe" (as in Edgar Allan)...

    I was further confused as I had just recently posted a thread response where I made literary allusions to "Poe, E. A."...

    As referenced here:


    Edgar Allan Poe's use of onomatopoeia - sound devices - tonal technique and alliteration in poetry and verse / figurative language and the predominant antagonist in musical adaptations and song like "come rest in this bosom" or "Annabelle Lee"

    Walt Whitman's leaves of grass or Rudyard Kipling's the sapper

    And some Robert Frost for good measure

    Or maybe East bound and down by Jerry Lee for you heathens and common folk.

    Or take me home, country roads...

    So you can see that I have become temporarily thread blind - and while I would like to blame you it's most likely my fault...

    But now you can join me in my confusion.

    :shock:


    Mike
Sign In or Register to comment.