Nov 23, 2003
I went to Paul's Valley, Oklahoma today to pick up some rattlesnakes from a man named Jeff that catches them there. he has a large amount of land- including a pond, and Timber Rattlesnakes come up onto his property regularly.
A friend of Rex and mine, Andey, knew Jeff from his church or something (I didn't personally know him) and had heard that we had a pigmy rattlesnake. He wanted one, and offered us a Timber Rattlesnake for it. We can't catch Timbers here in Norman, so we decided to go for it. Sometime after he offered this deal, one of his timber rattlesnakes gave birth to something like 9 young, and he offered us two neonates (very young snakes) for the Pigmy. this sounded even better.
When we got down to his house, He had decided that he was going to give us three timber rattlesnakes, 2 adult copperheads, 2 juvenille copperheads, and one juvenille western diamondback (Crotalus atrox).
So, for our one, slightly darker-than-average (for the area he's from, anyway) Pigmy Rattlesnake, we got 8 snakes. a pretty good deal, actually, especially considering that this coming summer I will be able to go and catch more near Michael's house.
Interestingly, Jeff's son was bitten by a Rock Rattlesnake (C. lepidus)
when he was younger. He was bitten on the middle finger, but was luckier than I was, and survived the encounter with all of his fingers. During the winter his finger shrivels and turns a frosty white color, so there is some residual damage somewhere still in his finger.
This makes me wonder how I will fare during this winter. As it is, my thumb hurts more than it usually does whenever there are large amounts of water in the air...
As far as we know, we have a pair of breeding Broad-Banded Copperheads (Agkistrodon Contortrix laticinctus), and we hope that we will have a breeding pair of Timbers (C. horridus) in the next couple of years. We'll see what happens.
For clarity, all rattlesnakes are in the Genus Crotalus, except Pigmy Rattlesnakes and Massasauga, which are in the Genus Sistrurus.
all new world pit vipers are called Crotalids, as a whole, which is kind of wierd because the rattlesnakes' name, Crotalus, comes from "dry rattle" in greek.
Thus S. miliarus would be in the Sistrurus genus (that's a pigmy rattlesnake!).
I find it... perturbing that a western diamondback resides in my mothers' house. I'm sure she's not happy...
A friend of Rex and mine, Andey, knew Jeff from his church or something (I didn't personally know him) and had heard that we had a pigmy rattlesnake. He wanted one, and offered us a Timber Rattlesnake for it. We can't catch Timbers here in Norman, so we decided to go for it. Sometime after he offered this deal, one of his timber rattlesnakes gave birth to something like 9 young, and he offered us two neonates (very young snakes) for the Pigmy. this sounded even better.
When we got down to his house, He had decided that he was going to give us three timber rattlesnakes, 2 adult copperheads, 2 juvenille copperheads, and one juvenille western diamondback (Crotalus atrox).
So, for our one, slightly darker-than-average (for the area he's from, anyway) Pigmy Rattlesnake, we got 8 snakes. a pretty good deal, actually, especially considering that this coming summer I will be able to go and catch more near Michael's house.
Interestingly, Jeff's son was bitten by a Rock Rattlesnake (C. lepidus)
when he was younger. He was bitten on the middle finger, but was luckier than I was, and survived the encounter with all of his fingers. During the winter his finger shrivels and turns a frosty white color, so there is some residual damage somewhere still in his finger.
This makes me wonder how I will fare during this winter. As it is, my thumb hurts more than it usually does whenever there are large amounts of water in the air...
As far as we know, we have a pair of breeding Broad-Banded Copperheads (Agkistrodon Contortrix laticinctus), and we hope that we will have a breeding pair of Timbers (C. horridus) in the next couple of years. We'll see what happens.
For clarity, all rattlesnakes are in the Genus Crotalus, except Pigmy Rattlesnakes and Massasauga, which are in the Genus Sistrurus.
all new world pit vipers are called Crotalids, as a whole, which is kind of wierd because the rattlesnakes' name, Crotalus, comes from "dry rattle" in greek.
Thus S. miliarus would be in the Sistrurus genus (that's a pigmy rattlesnake!).
I find it... perturbing that a western diamondback resides in my mothers' house. I'm sure she's not happy...
Comments:
Post a Comment
