View Full Version : Is stealing rattler tails a thing?
grubbster
06-03-2017, 12:13
We came across this snake on Wednesday on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I got out to check it out and noticed that the rattler was missing from the tail. It didn't look like it had gotten hit by a car. The cut looked pretty clean. The only thing I could think of was that someone had cut the rattle off. The snake was still alive. Has anyone heard if stealing rattlesnake rattles is a thing now? Would not surprise me if that were the case.
39527
Sarcasm the elf
06-03-2017, 12:16
I have heard that rattlesnakes sometimes lose the end of their tails to fights with predators, particularly bobcats. No idea if this is applicable to the one you photographed, but I thought it was interesting.
Nah, they lose them occasionally in the wild. If someone was going to take one, I can't imagine them not killing the snake first.
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grubbster
06-03-2017, 12:20
Interesting about the fights. Would love to witness one of those. The fact that this one was right on the parkway is what lead me to think human intervention.
Drybones
06-03-2017, 15:23
I had a 13 rattle zipper pull on my Marmot down jacket.
MuddyWaters
06-03-2017, 16:24
Interesting about the fights. Would love to witness one of those. The fact that this one was right on the parkway is what lead me to think human intervention.
The rattles break off for sure
Never seen everything gone with meat showing
Maybe car
BuckeyeBill
06-04-2017, 01:31
I was out in New Mexico a few years ago and bought my daughters a pair of rattler earrings and also a pair of snake fang earrings. They thought they were really "cool", but they sure pissed my ex-wife off.
Drybones
06-04-2017, 17:10
I was out in New Mexico a few years ago and bought my daughters a pair of rattler earrings and also a pair of snake fang earrings. They thought they were really "cool", but they sure pissed my ex-wife off.
Glad to see you had a good day Bill.
Rain Man
06-05-2017, 00:08
Just shed?
I've heard of moonshiners removing rattles from snakes and letting them lose near their stills to keep snoopers away. It may be folklore but sounds logical.
TwoRoads
06-06-2018, 11:52
I was traveling on the Blue Ridge Parkway one time a few years back when I came around a curve and saw a Timber Rattlesnake in the middle of my lane. I made sure to straddle it, but it didn't move. I pulled over and walked back to the snake, and saw that it had been hit. I was contemplating moving it (safely), but never got the chance. Another car came around the curve, pulled over, and this guy got out of his car and (right in front of his kid), started carving the rattles off for a souvenir. The snake was still alive and was trying to bite him, so he stomped on its head a few times. I couldn't help but wish the snake got a piece of the moron. That kind of cruelty is hard to see. It does happen, unfortunately.
johnnybgood
06-06-2018, 13:43
Just shed?
No, rattles are permanent however skin sheds annually. This looks like a clean cut. If it's intentional the perpetrator took a risk being bitten.
Rattles break off all the time. I've kept many rattlesnakes in the past and it was always a point of pride to raise one from a baby to many years old with the button intact. This isn't a broken rattle, this was an amputation.
No, I did not and do not free-handle venomous snakes. No, I've never been envenomated, not even close. My affinity in the venomous world lies primarily with pit vipers, I'm not much of a fan of other types.
I kept them along with all kids of other reptiles and amphibians because they are fascinating. Now my interaction with them is limited primarily to moving them from the road or relocating them for anxious friends and family.
Alligator
06-06-2018, 18:15
The tail seems somewhat discolored?
There is another explanation: the rattlesnake does not have a rattle.
Some sub-populations of rattlesnakes are thriving without the rattle.
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/rattlesnakes-evolving-losing-their-rattles-expert-says
There is another explanation: the rattlesnake does not have a rattle.
Some sub-populations of rattlesnakes are thriving without the rattle.
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/rattlesnakes-evolving-losing-their-rattles-expert-says
Gambit McCrae
06-07-2018, 09:39
From Quaro:
Do rattlesnakes shed their rattles?
As others have explained, they don’t shed the rattle itself - the rattle itself is a collection of thickened, shed ‘skin’ from the very end scale (the ‘button’) of the rattlesnake’s tail. That scale is lobed so the shed skins don’t come off because of the constrictions which make it lobed. Each time the rattlesnake sheds another segment is added to the rattle.
The rattle is slightly asymmetrical so that it doesn’t rattle when the snake crawls, giving the game away to potential prey.
No, in fact the rattle is the only part of their external skin they don't shed. The rattle is made of keratin, like your fingernails, and they are born with a single “button” on the end. Each time they shed, they generate a new rattle behind the old one. So the rattles closer to the body are newer. Rattles don't grow, so they are always the same size as the tail when they are generated. You can generally see a clear taper at the end, with small rattles generated when they were young, and larger rattles as they get older.
The rattles aren't alive, except the one closest to the body. The one still attached to the body is still “green” and growing, and breaking it would hurt the snake similar to you breaking the part of your fingernail that is at the base of the nail, still attached to the skin underneath.
There's nothing loose inside the rattle to make noise, instead the rattles have three chambers, or lobes. Two of those chambers are inside the older rattles, and are what keep the older rattles attached. The sound they make is the sound of the keratin rattles hitting each other as they are shaken. Here's a picture I found on Google of a cross-section of a rattle.
rocketsocks
06-08-2018, 00:18
Ouroboros........
In Texas and Oklahoma it's traditional to put rattlesnake rattles in the local country fiddle used at dances...
MtDoraDave
06-15-2018, 07:10
The tail seems somewhat discolored?
Some of the timber rattlers have dark tails like that (if that's what you meant).
So many people kill venomous snakes and think it's okay because...well, it's a venomous snake! I am certainly not one of those people, but I imagine some of those people would cut off the rattle to keep as a souvenir. But to cut the rattle off a living snake ?
I don't know what kind of person would cut off the rattle, leaving the snake alive. Well, I'd say an evil person. It's cruel to the animal for starters, and the only reason I can think of doing so is to try to get someone or something bitten - because they could no longer hear the rattler's warning mechanism.
Highly unlikely. If you had a still, would you want it full of silent rattlesnakes?
rocketsocks
06-18-2018, 17:15
Well if it ain’t a thing it ought be...a bad punishable thing!
It's okay as long as you bite it off while it's rattling:) Just kidding!
Time Zone
07-18-2018, 11:18
Birth defects are known to occur from time to time throughout the animal kingdom. A rattler without a rattle could be an example.
I'm about as far from a snake expert as one can get, but the OP's picture seems to show a snake with damage/injury to the end of its body, not a cleanly-removed rattle. The last few inches of its body are blackened and of smaller diameter (more than just from tapering), as if run over by a car on a newly-paved asphalt road. JMO.