[SWAMPSNIPER]

I hang out a lot at the county arboretum west of St. Augustine, it is close to home and a good place for an old fart to sit with a camera. Last week I was getting ready to kneel down for a butterfly shot, and this Pygmy Rattler was just inside the border of the flower bed. They have a master gardner training program, and the trainees do a lot of the garden work. I've watched them just blindly grab a bunch of weeds many times. I don't know why none of them have been bit yet. These little guys are all over the place here. The bites aren't usually serious, but they aren't fun. I know from personal experience. This snake was molting, couldn't see good, and it was ready for action. It had an accident about 20 seconds after posing, a stick fell on it.

[brytlea]

Beautiful! I’ve never seen a pygmy rattler, had no idea they were so pretty. Out in W. TX where we spent many years, we had diamond backs, and while they are pretty, growing up with them it was hard to think of them as anything other than something to avoid. I knew a boy, growing up, who stepped into a nest of them and was bitten several times. He lost his leg, but he lived.

Do we have pygmy rattlers out here (S. Florida, Delray Beach)? I’ve seen a few coral snakes (mostly dead in the road) and other non poisonous ones. Out in East Texas we had LOTS of copper heads and water moccosins. I think we had rattlers but I never saw one.
susie

[A knight without armor]

“It had an accident about 20 seconds after posing, a stick fell on it. “

Dang those falling stick accidents.