Id this snake..

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Tony the tank

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I believe this fierce little critter is a timber... Not sure...

It was in Tony's enclosures.. Hit me twice before I even noticed in there..both times striking my watch..I was able to get him out of the box and move him away from being a menace.. But he was a fierce little critter..;)


ImageUploadedByTortForum1378580541.723421.jpgHere is the pic
 
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Baoh

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You might be correct, I think, but it could also be a dusky pygmy.

You are also lucky as all get out that it hit your watch twice instead of you.

Beautiful. Since these guys usually give a fair amount of warning pre-strike, I would just advise you to step up your level of caution. I am very glad to read you did not get directly struck.

Interesting to see them in Southern FL. As with box turtles and a great many other things, I consider the range maps to be guidelines more than factual boundaries. With human action affecting spread beyond its normal rate, things change relatively quickly.

Thanks for sharing. Very cool.
 

gila-91

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It's a pygmy rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius), definitely not a timber rattlesnake. It's native to your area.
 

mike taylor

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It is a pygmy rattle snake and your soooo Lucky. Glad your not posting this from a hospital bed . Those things will mess you up.

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Tony the tank

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After further reasearch I agree.. Pygmy Rattler.. Didn't rattle ... I was inside Tony's box (on my belly just my torso inside)setting up the heat mat and and saw something strike my watch ..then again two strikes quickly.. Got the flashlight and went back in..coaxed him out of the box with a stick and moved him out of the pen....He was very aggressive for his size.... Put him in a cooler and moved him about 5-6 miles down the road into a field..

I'm concerned about my torts and my dogs....these things are almost invisible and very aggressive..
 

mike taylor

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Yes they are and you my friend need to go get you a lotto ticket . Because you are Lucky you walked away from that little guy . I love snakes and have messed with many of them and the smaller they are them more bitey they are . The pygmy is one of the ones that freak me out .

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gila-91

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They are in a different genus than the timbers, and have a very tiny rattle that is difficult to hear (as I understand it). Their venom yield is also very small. Certainly something to be cautious of but don't fret about it too much
 

sissyofone

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Definitly a pigmy rattler. Those things are ferocious little snakes. You were so lucky..

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StudentoftheReptile

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I have heard/read that their rattle is akin to the buzz of insects, not the typical sound of Crotalus sp rattling.
 

Baoh

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For the young, that is probably noticeable. As humans get older, they lose the ability to hear some frequencies (especially the higher stuff). It may be possible that Hector cannot hear that particular frequency any more due to changes in his hair cells.
 

Madkins007

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We have massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus) locally- a different but related species to the pygmy (S. miliarius). When a buddy and I would go field herping, we found lots of local farmers near wetlands who would run into them when bailing hay, etc. and several had been bitten. None we spoke to went to the hospital (but, being old-school farmers, anything less then loosing two legs is treated at home) and no significant ride effects.

Smallish buzz (like a cicada), and about half I had seen would pose and bluster, and the other half ran away.

Just because I am that sort of dork: Pygmy rattlers have a subcutaneous (SC) LD50 of about 24.3mg/kg, an intravenous (IV) dosage about half that, and a venom yield of 12-35mg.

This all means that it would take about 24.3mg of the venom to kill 50 out of 100 1kg animals if you injected it under the skin. A 100lb person weighs 45kg, so would need 1093.5mg of venom (under the skin, about half that in the blood veins) to have a 50% chance of killing that person- but the average adult snake only has 12-35mg of venom in it total. Bottom line- even a 35lb (15.8kg) dog is unlikely to get a fatal bite from one of these guys, since it would take 384mg of venom.

That does not mean it won't hurt like hell or cause other problems!

By the way, just for comparison because I think this is dang cool: (The smaller the LD50, the more dangerous the venom is in general!)
- Timber rattler- LD50- 3.1mg SC, 2.1mg IV, yield- 75-210mg!
- Cottonmouth- LD50- 25.8mg SC, 4mg IV, yield- 80-170mg
- Gabbon viper- LD50- 12.5mg Sc, 6.7mg IV, yield- a whopping 450-600mg (and they have huge fangs and bad tempers)
- Eastern Diamondback- is AMAZINGLY close to the Gabbon viper, but the largest venom glands on the list at up to 850mg!
- Black mamba- LD50- 0.32mg SC, 0.25mg IV, yield- 50-120mg
- Duboise sea snake- LD50- it only takes 0.044mg of the stuff! Yield is only 0.70mg, but that is plenty!
- Eastern brown snake- the winner for LD50 at 0.0365, yield is unlisted.
- Forest, spectaculed, and Egyptian cobras are the species that kill the most humans. Their LD50 is a fairly unimpressive (compared to the really venomous snakes) 1.15 to 0.45 depending on the species, with yields of 150-500mg. While this is certainly dangerous, the real problems are they live close to people (like garter snakes in the US), are not shy, and most of the victims are poor and/or far from help.

For scale- usually only about 5 people in the US die from snakebites every year- the numbers are similar for Europe and Australia, while conservative estimates suggest 50,000+ die in the tropical and subtropical areas of South America, India, the Southeast, and Africa.

http://www.seanthomas.net/oldsite/ld50tot.html
http://animals.pawnation.com/snake-bite-death-statistics-worldwide-2431.html
 
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