*shudder*

And if it does, I ain't never going to Texas!!!

Online sources say diamondbacks can get up to 2m, so a particularly big one could be 8' long.

The Eastern Diamondback is one of the most dangerous snakes in North America. Despite that, though, I think there's a lot of things in Texas to worry about more than snakes. Snakes don't attack if you don't bother them. Rednecks do.

[ 29 January 2005: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Human Fly:
LOL!! I take it you don't see a lot of snakey action in your part of the world, then, Heph?

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No, not in the British Columbia mountains, anyways. My previous "snake experiences" have all been back on the prairies with garter snakes that are **NOT** of some lunatic gargantuan proportions. Garter snakes I can handle; eight-foot diamondback rattlers are something else again (although the comment about rednecks with shotguns is duly noted).

And no, I wasn't planning a trip to Texas anyway. It's a "Red State", after all.

[ 29 January 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

I also thought I'd share this picture I found in the search. I think we have a new contenter for "Caption This"

Supposedly the snake weighs 89 lbs., but the guy is apparently holding it up without much effort.

If you want to know what it feels like, try holding up a sack of cement (100 lbs.) by one hand as this guy is - and smile while doing so. I suspect the leverage of the weight would rip your hand off.

I think the picture has been photoshopped to increase the body size of the snake.

Just found this about the western rattler here:

http://tinyurl.com/6tdxl

{QUOTE]A western diamondback may surpass seven feet in length. A heavy bodied reptile, it can weigh up to sixteen pounds.[/QUOTE]

Now that makes a lot more sense. If the original snake the guy was holding weighed in at say 15 lbs, he could hold it that way without too much strain. Rest of the body of the snake was photoshopped.

Also checked the Eastern Diamondback just to see. They are referred to as the largest North American snake, with weights to ten pounds, and maximum length of 8 ft.

On the other hand 8 feet long and 10 pounds sounds like a very skinny snake. (Calculate) Yup, about 3 square inches cross section.

There are indeed inconsistencies. What the upshot is I can't quite say.

I just checked another possibility. The fer-de-lance is a Central American snake that looks like that but is bigger than rattlesnakes. I can't quite tell from the photo if the snake has rattles.

quote:

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If you want to know what it feels like, try holding up a sack of cement (100 lbs.) by one hand as this guy is

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Riding a bike through College Station one morning I almost rode over one ambling (coasting, snaking?) across a street. It was almost as long as a car is wide.

Fishing in a reservoir near Huntsville, me and a friend were up to our knees. It's harder to tell how big a snake is in the water, but judging by the ripples it was leaving in it's wake as it came toward us, it had to be 4 ft. plus. And while I appreciate the notion that if you don't bug them they'll do the same, I was thinking, while splashing out "All I have to do is beat Dave to the shore". Not one of my finest moments.

So yeah, I have seen snakes as big as that.

[ 01 February 2005: Message edited by: Tommy Shanks ]

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Thought you might be onto something here! Look closer though, and you can see that his other arm is behind him holding the other end of that crook that he's lifting the snake with. Looks like it's cantilevered with his visible arm and hand as the fulcrum. And the crook is facing at us with just enough foreshortening to see how it's bending under the weight.

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Not sure whether you're trying to be funny or not.

I looked at the picture and can't see any part of his left arm or hand.

In any case, having searched all over the web, I can't find any site that describes Western (or Eastern) diamondback rattlers as bigger than 15 pounds. Even the Central American fer-de-lance, which looks similar to the diamondback (and which is the largest venomous snake in North America), grows only slightly larger than the Eastern diamondback.

The snake in the picture is obviously more than 8.9 lbs (if the 89 lbs. is a typo), and yet a lot more than 15 lbs.

Plus, the colours are too bright for the lighting, IMO. Look at the scales where the grass is near the guys knee. Also look at his jacked. That part of the snake seems a little off.

[ 01 February 2005: Message edited by: Papal_Bull ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Papal_Bull:
It could be a highly photoshopped Hognose. Just saying.

Plus, the colours are too bright for the lighting, IMO. Look at the scales where the grass is near the guys knee. Also look at his jacked. That part of the snake seems a little off.

[ 01 February 2005: Message edited by: Papal_Bull ]

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That position is also one that a rattler, a diamond back no less, NEVER assumes when held captive. It is a picture of a rattler that is crawling across the ground and then pinned up on there without much planning.

I live in eastern diamondback country. This looks like a western diamondback to me, the distinguishing factor being the black and white stripes near the end of the tail (WDB is also called the "coon-tail" rattler). The edb and wdb can look very similar except for this "coon tail" marking. The record size for the eastern db is 96 inches (which may be in dispute) and around 87 inches for the western version.

Even if you "stretch out" the snake in the picture, it looks more like a 7-footer to me(unless the guy holding it is seven feet tall himself). Even though 7+ foot long diamondbacks are occasionally (rarely) found, I definitely think the photo has been tampered with, because of the body proportion if not the length also. A large EDB could conceivably be that fat, but a western db probably wouldn't be -- unless it's a very well-fed captive snake.