Today I Soiled Myself
So I’m walking along as quickly as possible on a dirt road to reach my next point on a transect this morning. I was looking down at my feet, to make sure that I didn’t twist an ankle, when I saw something that looked peculiar yet horrifying less than a foot away from where from I’d just stepped.
This is a Black-tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus). He measured in at a whopping four feet long (only a good estimate, I didn’t feel like trying to get more accurate than that). He was stretched out across the road, soaking in the morning rays to raise his body temperature. I came within a foot from stepping right on his tail.
Needless to say, my adrenal glands kicked in faster than his rattles — he never made a sound as I approached. After my heart rate returned from the stratosphere, I pulled out the camera and got some pictures.
He didn’t really appreciate that and finally started to move off the road and use the rattle.
I found myself curiously jittery the rest of the morning. Still, I loved it.
What a beauty! That is so cool.
Yikes…be careful out there, Jay!
Jay,
Congratulations on having a safe encounter with the Blacktail. I’ve found them to be quite common in the Davis Mountains. Fortunately, they are generally much more “laid back” than the Western Diamondbacks and Mojaves that one encounters at lower elevations. Keep an eye out also for the much smaller Rock Rattlers; they blend in with the substrate very well and are even more abundant than Blacktails. Interestingly, the Rock Rattlers from the Davis Mtns are highly variable in coloration and pattern; they seem to look different in every canyon.
As for your question about the Whiptail lizards of that area, I must admit that is one group that I have yet to get a handle on. There are eleven species in Texas (mostly in the Trans-Pecos) and more than half of them are unisexual (parthenogenic), most having arisen via hybridization between formerly allopatric sexual species. They are basically the Empidonax flycatchers of the herp world; I’ve seen even lizard specialists reach for the keys when trying to I.D. them. They are also a favorite among herp taxonomists and consequently the group is in a state of flux. In fact, the genus Cnemidophorus has been recently split, the US species now enjoy the generic moniker of Aspidoscelis (the current round of field guides don’t include this yet). I also have seen some really large ones in the Trans-Pecos, most likely are the Tiger Whiptail (A. tigris) and/or the Checkered Whiptail (A. tesselatus). As you no doubt know, they are very difficult to catch or photograph.
Nice photos of the Blacktail.
Thanks Tom. I just learned a lot of this recently. From talking to the conservation biologist out here, the species I’m likely seeing is Aspidoscelis exsanguis, the Chihuahuan Spotted Whiptail. I’ve got a (relatively poor) picture that I’ll be putting up shortly.