eyelaser wrote: azbill wrote:
Thanks again for the comments.
While he did assume a defensive posture, he remianed calm never striking or even rattling.
Sounds interesting Norm. I\'ve been an amateur herper since I was a kid. Should\'ve made a career out of it!
Bill, that part about not rattling. My understanding is that there are rattlers out there that stay quiet as a recent evolutionary tactic to not being killed by people who find them more easily when they make a noise. So I am not sure the lack of rattling indicates it was \"chillin\"
Eric
Eric,
I don\'t think that applies to the AZ Black Rattlesnake. They are notoriously quiet and not very aggressive.
One study I conducted was with Mohave rattlesnakes and they are noted for being more aggressive. We surgically implanted radio-transmitters in 4 of them and replaced the batteries about every 3 to 4 months for up to a year. I found that they were more likely to remain quiet if they were concealed in cover but if out in the open they might start rattling quite a distance from me. One snake would remain quiet even though I might be only 3 or 4 feet from him when he was in cover. If he was on a road he might start rattling 20 feet away.
I would say that any trend to not rattle would be more of an adaption behavior rather than an evolutionary trend.
Norm
Norm
Norm
Jul 09, 2012 at 04:20 PM
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