Pennsylvania’s Poisonous Wild Pt. 3: The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake
Posted on November 3rd, 2008 in future reference biology, eastern massasauga rattlesnake, future reference, horror, poison, snakes, wild
The northern copperhead, timber rattlesnakes and the eastern massasauga rattlesnakes are the poisonous snakes that inhabit Pennsylvania. Today’s informative snippet, today’s blog bite, is on the massasauga rattlesnake.
Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake’s name comes from Chippewa, in which “massasauga” means “great river mouth”, “so named because it is usually found in river bottom forests and nearby fields” – according to Wisconsin’s DNR. This site also has some more unfortunate news: “A common myth exists that all rattlesnakes will rattle before they strike. This is not always true, and the human tactic of listening for the rattle and killing the snake may be increasing the occurrence of rattlesnakes avoiding the use of the rattle.”
Also, the rattle doesn’t sound like I imagined – like a baby’s rattle – apparently its more of a sound like “a buzzing sound similar to that of a grasshopper or cricket.” My wife’s comment to this was “great – we’re dead.” How am I going to distinguish that in the wild?
The good news is that, although their venom is potent, they don’t have much of it and it rarely will cause severe harm to a full-sized human. In fact, according to the state of Wisconsin, since 1900 no one in that state has died from a bite from this snake. Apparently, “Medical experts familiar with snake bites indicate that up to 60% of all snake bites to humans by poisonous snakes are “dry” bites containing no venom. Experts feel that the snakes may be voluntarily withholding the venom for use on prey and conserving it in some defense situations.”
And a fun fact – “When they are not in use, the fangs rotate and fold backward against the roof of its mouth. Massasaugas have the control to move each fang separately at will.” I knew the former fact from the new vampire show, True Blood, but I didn’t know they could control each fang separately.
As the Pennsylvania Wildlife site says, most people are bitten by poisonous snakes by trying to catch and kill them. So just leave them alone: “Once it finds the food it is looking for, it will often move on to another area.” The way I learned to scare snakes away as a kid was to stomp really loudly, since snakes sense vibrations and generally don’t like loud noises. They don’t eat people, so why would they want to get close to us?
Even so, “often come around people because they attract rodents that feed on everything from bird seed to food in human homes. The Eastern Milksnake and the Black Ratsnake are some of nature’s best “mousetraps”.”
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