Crotalus horridus

[Dylan8i]

so on our field trip this weekend we stopped at a rattle snake hibernaculum and found this guy.















comments? critique?

[Sushigaijin]

Wow that's a BEAUTIFUL timber - great color and pattern. We get that much yellow in some of the prarie du chien area horridus, but most of the timbers I have seen have been universally grey with orange dorsal stripes - typical of "intergrade" zones between atricaudatus and horridus. I'm not sure I subscribe to the nomenclature, but they are certainly drastically different snakes.

I like the first shot best. A touch more DoF might have been nice, but at 1/60 and F/5.6 it seems to me that you were scrambling just to get enough light for what you got. Timber season is just getting started, with any luck we will both be posting many more in the next couple of weeks.

[Dylan8i]

i took a bunch of pics, some with flash, some with natural light and high iso.... but those still came out blurry.

the main problem was i was with a class of about 15 people all lined up behind me, and the guy leading didn't want people to get close (obviously didn't want to have to deal with a bite).

he said one he saw last week was even more yellow, but as i've been trying to get any rattler pics this summer i was quite happy.... i couldn't get him to rattle though.

[paulnj]

Very nice find!

[Sushigaijin]

i couldn't get him to rattle though.

I don't think horridus rattle - at least, not full bore the way that atrox do. The best rattle I've gotten out of them was a rat-a-tat cadence as one slunk away, nothing compared to the bee-hive sound of a really hot and PO'd wdb. They definately do not pose as nicely as some of the western crotalids do.

Nothing worse than a crowd of people pushing for photo position, especially when venomous snakes are concerned.

[Dylan8i]

well unless there are several atrox ( western diamond backs) in PA i have on multiple occasion heard them all out rattling. One this summer (that i almost stepped on) rattled for about 10 mins after it scooted under a rock, although it sounded like a loud bee, so maybe only had 1-2 buttons on the rattle. this one did do the rat-a-tat on the way out as well.

in fact now that i think of it, someone at the field station in eastern KY i do my research at had a great photo of a timber rattler posing under a log, with just the rattler blurred.


and i was the only one taking photos of it! they were just along to see one, because most hand never seen one, or even heard one before.