So we all know it hasn't rained in Florida in. . .? Forever? Its been a very dry and very hot winter and spring. Everyone is sheltering at home during the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, we have a very old hazard lurking, Rattlesnakes. Specifically the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus).
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I go out late at night and turn on the sprinklers for a few minutes to try and keep plants alive. I always carry a very bright spotlight just in case I run into a Florida Black Bear. It happens more frequently than you'd imagine in rural Florida during times of drought.
Last night I reached for the water spigot and saw this Diamondback Rattlesnake's (Crotalus adamanteus) rattle laying across the spigot.
Click on any image for a larger view
Luckily for me, this spectacularly large rattlesnake was in the process of eating something, likely a rat or a fish from my nearby koi ponds. So I ran back into the house, got a camera, and watched as the snake downed her meal. The snake's head is about the size of my man-sized fist. It would've caused damage had it bitten me.
After about 15 minutes of watching the snake's meal work its way through its body I figured the rattlesnake would coil up and take a long nap.
I estimated the snake to be between 7 and 8 feet long (2.1 - 2.4 m).
This is a Dangerous Snake
Through no fault of its own this snake is far too large and poisonous to have close to one's house. It could easily have sent me to the emergency room had it not had a meal in its mouth, already, when I encountered it. It also could do great damage to our dogs and cats.
I would never kill a snake, or anything else for that matter, but I would relocate a dangerous snake like this one.
I would never kill a snake, or anything else for that matter, but I would relocate a dangerous snake like this one.
I decide to run back around into the house, get a pillowcase to put the snake in for transport, and collect a better camera for taking nighttime photos. I was going to carry the snake to the nearby St. Johns River and let him go in the forest there where he would be no harm to humans.
I was gone for only a few minutes.
When I returned the giant rattlesnake had disappeared into the scrub.
It was most interesting that the rattlesnake had the strength to get out of sight so quickly having just had a large meal. That's one super ferocious snake.
I looked for the rattlesnake for over an hour, and never found a trace of her.
What does the Rattlesnake's Rattle
Tell us About the Snake?
The rattlesnake's rattles are kind of like human's fingernails. They are created every time the snake sheds its skin, which is at least twice a year. In this snake's case there are about 12 rattles making him at least 6 years old. However, one cannot use the rattle to accurately age a snake because like human's finger nails they break off as they wear. All we can say is that he is at least 6 years old.
The rattlesnake's rattle has nothing to do with the length of the snake.
Presumably because this is such a large snake and our home is on some acreage in the Central Florida scrub, we can assume this is the same snake that I saw in roughly the same area in February of 2013, 7 years ago. There would not be multiple rattlesnakes of this size in the same area because of the food requirements of each individual. See the 2013 rattlesnake at this link:
For more snakes of Florida
check out my Florida snake pages