Posted on 11/19/2010 10:16:49 PM PST by roses of sharon
Just in case, better to be safe than sorry!
Well I used to hunt “rattlers” as a boy back in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s and at least half of them didn’t rattle back then either.
Rattlesnakes are probably not smart enough to “learn” behavior of this sort. However (assuming this anecdotal evidence is accurate), perhaps the ones who naturally did not buzz before striking are more likely to survive to breeding age, and therefore would eventually become the majority population. It would be interesting to have a herpetologist look into this.
Bump for reference.
That is the current theory in herp circles.
The rattlesnakes around here didn’t get the memo, never having seen a wild pig, I guess.
We lived in a desert community north of Phoenix. The snakes that rattled got killed. The ones that didn’t often got away scott free. Our neighbor was bit twice by a rattle snake that didn’t buzz. He killed it, but not before it did some serious damage. It’s a case of selective breeding.
My question is, will we have to change the name of the snakes if they quit rattling?
Do you not see that this is evolution? The buzzing snakes died off and the non-buzzing snakes did not. So, they evolved.
Dawkins is vindicated.
Now move along and stop asking ya-but questions.
I can get along with rattlesnakes, but water moccasins are bad.
This does not reflect the process of evolution. It reflects the process of natural selection.
Do you not know the difference?
bitten my a rattlesnake should read as, “bitten by a rattlesnake”
You and I are both lucky we haven't been bitten (yet). I've handled -- in the wild -- nearly 100 rattlensakes (six different species) and I look back now at my sometimes reckless behavior.
I never physically handle them now. I must be smarter. ;)
But in a wild setting, I never kill them either. I'm an old-school Conservationist with a capital C, which makes me the philosophical enemy of the socialist Environmentalist with a capital E.
Rattle snakes are still evolving. Some have even turned into Lawyers. Many have become politicians.
My experience is that rattlers won’t buzz unless you stay too near to them for long enough that they become threatened. Most people bit by a rattlesnake never heard them buzz. I had a baby in my backyard that didn’t even make a sound before he got whomped with a rake.
Of course, this hog story does seem to make a good excuse for blasting some feral hogs.
No way I’m going to get a good night’s sleep after that.
Aside from the baby rattler in my backyard that got killed because our little Siamese cat was too curious near it, I won’t kill a snake either. I think about Hantavirus.
They may have stoped ratteling, but up here they better be undercover cause we got snow, and its cold. Dont think they much like snow.
We have snow too, and they are hidden out in their dens now.
Nueces Helicopter Pig Hunt (no music)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHmYsyVniE
“This feral hog eradication program is funded by a group of farmers who are taking progressive action to reduce the devastation done to their crops by these animals. Each and every feral hog is estimated to cause $1400 in crop damage during its lifetime. As you can see this data in combination with the extraordinarily high and ever expanding hog population proves to be a very big problem.”
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