Do the Rattlesnake Shake
Yesterday, Chris and I were walking down a dry, overflow rock bed right next to the Shasta River. We were looking for a few good rocks to fill our pathway, but instead we found a long shedded snakeskin! Eureka!
Right away, he got really excited, but the sight of that long thing entwined around the rocks made my stomach queasy. Naturally, I made myself pick it up, just to prove that I’m a sensible female. But to tell the truth, it was really hard for me to touch the sloughed-off skin without cringing. So I just stood there paralyzed, four feet of snakeskin draped over both of my arms. I couldn’t help but think of those weird, serpent-handling Pentecostal folk in the hills of Appalachia.
Why do they do that—drink strychnine and play with poisonous vipers? These are creatures that don’t even like to be in the limelight, much less get man-handled. As I understand it, Pentecostals believe Jesus Christ is inside them handling the serpents, using their hands and brains. Everything I’ve heard about Jesus, though, makes me think that he had better things to do than to play with snakes. Some of the temptation of this religious practice must be the ‘high’ the ‘anointed’ get from drinking rat poison, plus their addiction to endorphins. Let’s face it, snake handlers have got to be flooded with the highest adrenalin counts imaginable.
Getting back to the snakeskin we found, though: I didn’t know snakes had eyeball coverings. But there they were—intact and clear as could be, like perfect little cups. It was truly amazing to picture how the casings must have pealed off its eyes! When I checked the tail part, a much more unsettling thought popped into my brain— this might be a rattle snake’s sloughing. So I immediately draped the whole thing around Chris’ neck and shoulders, just in case poisonous venom could still get to me in some unfathomable way. Being a curious boy, Chris is definitely more the serpent handling type.
Our next stop was the National Park Service, where this tan, outdoorsy dude told us our treasured snake-sloughing definitely came from a rattler, ‘cause the head was diamond shaped. Plus you could see where the tail part had peeled itself off with a hole instead of a point. Rattlesnakes don’t shed skin from their rattle tails—in fact, that’s how their tails are made. Another rattle adds itself to the stack every time they shed, which can be 3 or 4 times a year depending.
We also learned about the incredible heat sensing pit below and back of the rattler’s nostril that it uses to hone in on warm blooded prey. This sense organ just happens to be more sensitive than our nose and mouth combined. At this point, I was becoming very intrigued about this fine rattlesnake fellow that had left its skin in our path. I mean, when’s the last time humans honed in on some warm blooded prey? And when’s the last time we had to bite it to death in one try?
When a rattler finds its prey, the strike is over in less that 0.5 seconds, and if its targeting is a bit off, it merely repositions both fangs at the speed of light (a slight exaggeration). Unlike the Eastern Diamondback whose venom mostly paralyzes you, the Pacific Rattlesnake’s toxin acts in the bloodstream. If you happen to be one of the relative few thousands that gets bit every year by Rattlers, don’t succumb to the urge to take off running, just because your legs still work. That will only serve to pump the venom through your body faster.
Generally speaking, I’m not a snake person—one of those types who constantly goes out looking, probably because I’d run like crazy. That’s not to say that I don’t admire and appreciate a good snake, especially one that keeps to itself while feasting on bothersome rodents. Our National Forest Service says that one single rattlesnake can cut the rodent population in any given area by 25% per year. Without rattlesnakes, we’d be overrun in no time. I am happy, however, that rattlesnakes are the only poisonous snakes native to California. That’s not saying that some nitwit who keeps exotic pets in captivity won’t accidentally let a King Cobra get away and start a family. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Speaking of bridges, I think I’ll finish up with a story about my Granddaddy Turner:
One summer’s day in rural Mississippi just a bit south of Memphis, he and my daddy, along with some buddies, were seining a bar-pit next to the Tallahatchie Bridge for some catfish bait (minnows and crawdads). My daddy says a seine is a large fishing net with corks at the top and lead weights at the bottom that you drag through the water. Anyway, Granddaddy Turner happened to have his fingers dangling in the muddy water. They probably resembled a cluster of fat juicy worms, ‘cause all of a sudden he brought his hand straight out of the water like a torpedo with a long snake attached by its teeth to the middle two. That stubborn snake had no intention of letting go. …What in the world was he going to do? Rather than rip-off part of his hand, Granddaddy plunged it back under water till the snake decided that air was more important than a mouthful of worms. Needless to say, everybody could see right away that the snake wasn’t a deadly Watermoccasin, but they were still impressed with Granddaddy Turner’s quick thinking under duress.
There’s a moral here, though……Don’t use your fingers as bait.
Because of close encounters like these, my daddy instilled in me a greatly needed respect for snakes. Cottonmouths and copperheads were everywhere in Mississippi, but Daddy said he never saw a Rattler. So I’m having the Great Printer in Salt Lake print up and mail him a SendOutCard with Chris holding the rattlesnake skin next to a yardstick like a trophy fish. That ought to give him a good laugh.