Grand Canyon Rattle Snakes-Including Pink Rattle Snakes

Posted on by oldpoet56

(THIS ARTICLE IS COURTESY OF THE U.S. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE)

 

Rattlesnakes

Light colored rattlesnake coiled
Grand Canyon rattlesnake on the North Kaibab Trail.

NPS

The Grand Canyon is home to six species of rattlesnakes. These creatures control rodent populations in the Canyon, helping prevent the spread of disease and the over grazing of fruiting plants. Please observe these venomous predators from a distance.

Identification

  • The most famous physical feature is the rattle on the end of the snake’s tail. It is made of highly modified scales, and the noise it makes is used to scare way animals that may threaten the snake. By scaring away predators without a fight, rattlesnakes avoid injury and don’t waste venom that they need for hunting.
  • Rattlesnakes have a thick body and broad, diamond shaped head.
  • Rattlesnakes are part of a group of venomous snakes called pit vipers. All pit vipers are characterized by a pair of heat-sensing pits below their nostrils that help them find prey at night.
  • Each of the 6 rattlesnake species in the Grand Canyon has a different color pattern.
Rattlesnake with black tip on its tail.
Black-tailed rattlesnakes are only found at the western edge of Grand Canyon.

William Flaxington

Black-Tailed Rattlesnake

Crotalus molossus

Light colored rattlesnake
Often described as pink in color, this species is found nowhere in the world but the Grand Canyon.

NPS

Grand Canyon Pink Rattlesnake

Crotalus oreganus abyssus

Light colored snake with dark spots
The North Rim is the only part of the park where this species is found.

Boise State University

Great Basin Rattlesnake

Crotalus oreganus lutosus

Snake coiled between rocks
Hopi rattlesnakes are found in northern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.

NPS

Hopi Rattlesnake

Crotalus viridis nuntius

Rattlesnake coiled on sand
Often called the “Mojave green,” Mojave rattlesnakes often have a greenish color.

William Flaxington

Mojave Rattlesnake

Crotalus scutulatus

Coiled rattlesnake
Speckled rattlesnakes are found in the western part of the park.

William Flaxington

Speckled Rattlesnake

Crotalus mitchellii

Habitat

  • While they can be found on the Rims, rattlesnakes are primarily found inside the Canyon.
  • Most species prefer open, rocky areas. Rocks provide shelter from predators, and an ambush site for hunting.

Behavior

  • Rattlesnakes are ambush predators, meaning that they wait motionless until prey moves close enough for the snake to strike.
  • Prey includes small mammals, birds, and other reptiles.
  • Rattlesnakes are hunted by hawks, eagles, and other snakes (including the kingsnake, which is immune to rattlesnake venom).
  • Because rattlesnakes are ectotherms (meaning that they cannot regulate their body temperature like mammals do) they must bask in the sun to warm themselves in cooler weather.
  • During the winter, rattlesnakes enter a state of brumation. Similar to hibernation, brumation means that the snake becomes far less active, but are not completely inactive through the winter. Rattlesnakes will stay in this dormant period until daytime temperatures consistently reach 60oF (15.5oC).
  • Rattlesnakes are highly venomous, but will not attack a human unless provoked. Most bites occur when people try to pick up rattlesnakes.
  • If you hear a rattle, move away from the noise and watch the snake from a distance of at least 15 feet (3m)

Boy Finds Rattlesnake In His Toilet: Family Storm Shelter Filled With Them

Posted on by oldpoet56

(THIS ARTICLE IS COURTESY OF CNN)

 

By Alexandra Larkin and Sophie Lewis, CNN

Updated 7:32 AM ET, Fri February 3, 2017

Snake removal company finds 24 critters at residence in Texas.

Snake removal company finds 24 critters at residence in Texas.

Story highlights

  • Isac Mcfadden woke up to find a rattlesnake swimming in his toilet
  • 23 other snakes were discovered under the Mcfadden’s Texas home

(CNN)What do you do if you find a snake in your toilet? If you’re Isac Mcfadden, you go get your mom.

The young boy from Abilene, Texas, woke up Tuesday morning and headed to the bathroom. To his surprise, he found a rattlesnake slithering up his toilet bowl, KXVA reports. “I found this big clump, and I knew it was a snake,” said Isac.
He quickly called his mom, Cassie Mcfadden, who recruited one of Isac’s older brothers to get a shovel to kill the snake.
“I was just like, what do you do with this? What do you do with this? I don’t know!” Cassie told the station.
Cassie Mcfadden killed the snake while dad, Jason, called Big Country Snake Removal. When the technician arrived, he found 24 Western diamondback rattlesnakes — 13 in the cellar, five adults and five babies underneath the house, and the one snake in the toilet, which had entered through a relief pipe.
“Rattlesnakes are secretive and can be very cryptic — They rely heavily on their camouflage,” the company warned on its Facebook page. “This is simply how they survive. Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
The firm recommended that property owners have their homes checked regularly for snake infestations and said they shouldn’t be afraid.
“Rattlesnakes are an absolute necessity for the ecosystems, and people have an irrational fear about them,” a company spokesman said.
Isac and his brothers had some final words of wisdom for other kids who encounter snakes in their homes.
“If you find a snake,” they told KXVA, “always get an adult.”

In My Time

Posted on by oldpoet56

O Lord, the things I have seen in my days I have been given

O Lord, the things by your grace to me You have shown

South-West Virginia and Your beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains

Iron Ridge culture, hard working poor white trash, 1950’s.

“I’m going to start remembering now”

These, the first words I ever remember

Spoken aloud, words from within my own soul

Inner words, everyone has a soul, I know They speak to all

Placed all the rooms in our little home, which I still remember

Outside, counted all the concrete blocks front to back

Two years old, friends how do we do and know such things?

Born with math skills, but look at Mozart what at three he could play.

Summertime, setting on the front porch, my two siblings by my side

Walk across the dirt road to the wood gate

Sunny day, watching the cattle on the other side

Mom gave us each a nickel for us a Coke to buy, a great treat at the time

Walked to the Shell just below the house that sheltered us five.

O how hard it was on Mom, to always be so poor

Minimum wage factories, workers just chafe on the rich mans floor

I guess it’s easier on the pre -school children, the classes they don’t know

School starts, you see other children, realities you had not seen before.

Mid 1960’s, poor flight to to west, a better life your hoping for

You trade the Blue Ridge for the Great Sioux’s Black Hills

O Lord, on at trip like this, the things a child’s eyes ingest

Moon light shines, illuminates the beauty of the big rigs

August Rattle Snakes playing in the sand, 114 in the shade

30 days later, chest high snow in September, O what a land.

One year later, hoping for better, for a good job toward Windy we ran

When you are so poor, you spend your whole life trying to escape it

But even young, I knew that pain, always present in my Mamma’s eyes

Life is always hard with an alcohol disease riddled parent

Knowing that you are hated and he beats you with glee

Even harder on the child when they know other adults know and see

They never ever come to your aid, they always just let it be.

Life’s early hardships, good or bad, they help create the person inside

About forth or fifth grade I walked into your door Lord

My life long rock, my life many times You have saved

Poor white boy, learning of life in the mid-west, with a Hill Billy mind

With some knowledge of Dakota’s  beautiful Black Hills

These life’s lessons, good and bad, always living behind my eyes.

Now I am aged with gray beard and store bought eyes

Now the projector in my mind plays me many memories

Occasionally I see some of the good I have done in my life

Though I do try to castrate these pictures from my mind

A lofty heart leads to evil, I wish to give ego no quarters to hide.

In my life I have mastered the art of many evils

O how I wish I could say that this thing was a lie

But when you have seen and have known pure evil

Pay some attention to the news, evil all around us resides

Demons have no fear of man, they will lie, looking you in the eyes

They will tell you they are Angels, for your best interest they care inside

Do not be deceived, mainly in the worlds capitals they hide.

In my time Lord You have shown me many things

Through Your Spirit You have given me some site

In life it is so easy to become a manic-depressive

You have so plainly shown me our planets plight and demise

Our leaders and the media so filled with venom to Your light

Evil so blinded and hungry for more power, money, and pride.

I know that by the time the trumpet sounds

I will once again be just dust upon the ground

Though I cringe for all our children, and theirs

The battle of the Nations against their Creator

For left behind loved ones, Armageddon lies ahead.

As the Lord and His Angels return to fight from the clouds overhead

The Demons pre-judged, to Hell they will now be thrown

Leaving the poor defrauded people to fight God and His Angels alone

They are now like grapes in the press, confused, disillusioned, and dead.

Lord I thank You that this event I will not have to see, “In My Time”.