snakes... OK war story>>

I lived in upcountry Thailand [Lopburi] as a kid [1964-1966]- my Dad was the US Army advisor to the Thai Special Forces, Infantry and Airborne schools...

We had snakes .. lots of snakes in Lopburi... I think in the two years we were there.. killed about 4 cobras and a couple of vipers.... Distinctly remember my brother wasteing a cobra as it crawled across the front yard with the .22....

was the best of times over there

simple - in us: if arrowhead = true .then. unknown

if arrowhead = false .then. SAFE
exception case: bright colors
if bright colors, then goto poem

[

I doubt a cat will keep snakes away. Any snake that feels hungry or threatened would make very short work of a house cat. There's a photo floating around out there of an Anaconda swallowing a Cheetah. And wild cats are far more alert in the wild than house cats are around the house.[/QUOTE]

I disagree. I have had cats up here for 20 years and No they won't keep the snakes away but they will agitate a rattler enough and keep their distance. They have alerted me to about 6 snakes over the years.

Whoa (Alto!)! Muy elegante! Gittin' medieval on us witcher razor sharp lojick, Br'er Ockham? :D

I don't see how beating the hell out of it with a shovel breaks my neck.:D My biggest fear isn't finding a snake in the house, it's my wife finding a snake in the house. "Deathly afraid" doesn't even begin to describe it.

i mean if you are out hiking, camping, fishing, etc.

i have some suggestions for practical jokes on your wife...

one involves the infamous white snake...

She always runs away from my white snake. Ever since we got married........:p

it needs to sneakily slither up on her

We have encountered at least 4 on our property this summer. This tiny one got into the living room on 9/3. I wasn't home so the housekeeper smashed it with a metal mop head.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222642034.jpg

Rick, I love the idea of a rattlesnake, because snakes are deaf, they can't hear, why would they rattle? Do they know that even though they are deaf, that other animals aren't, and would then be alerted by the rattle? Then you have black snakes who are also deaf that imitate the sound that rattlesnakes make (which neither snake can hear) by vibrating their tails in leaves to warn other animals that they cannot know can hear the warning. Crazy. I don't know if this is an argument for or against evolution, but it makes me smile to consider it.

where did you get the information that snakes are deaf?

AND that is not how evolution works. its not like a snake would have to hear a rattle sound in order to develop a rattle sound. that would be teleological evolution.

Yes, I know snakes are deaf. But even non-venomous ones, even snakes not remotely related to Rattlesnakes, often shake their tails violently when agitated. I don't know much about the evolution of the Rattlesnake, but my guess is that the early rattles were some mutation of their newly shed skin being stuck on their tails. Snakes don't usually eat when they're about to shed and they're usually pretty irritable, sort of their "time of the month", if you will.

nynor, snakes can sense vibrations, but they cannot hear. Rick, my post was really not about evolution, just something that I find fun to think about. My family is rather pro-snake, they know about pupil and head shape and would have no problem identifying a poisonous snake, and understand how beneficial snakes are.

this thread has become odd....

Did you get married in a small club in NJ ???

right.

they cannot hear in the conventional sense. snakes rest their lower mandible on the ground and can hear extremely well in that manner.

so their hearing is a matter of which medium the vibrations are in & the freq. range to be detected

btw - pit vipers can see in the dark - esp. mammals - the pits are actually infrared detectors

so stay cool

Are you saying that sankes can listen to sounds, that they can sense the vibrations in the air transmitted into the ground? Is it necessary for the lower jaw to be on the ground? I understood the jacobson's organ received vibration input detected by the ribs.

I think its fantastic that nature equipped rattlesnakes with an audible warning while giving them excellent visual camoflage. Reptiles are just cool.

both

i'll bet there a whole book or symposium on this

if you want i'll ask my snakologist friend -- he's a boxster driver too

Absolutely I'd like to know, ask that snakeologist (although I'd feel more comfortable referencing his/her wisdom if he/she had a more oficial sounding title).

From what I understand about rattlesnakes, their decline in population is not really from hikers hunting down the noisy examples, but construction caused habitat destruction. Roads are probably the biggest problem for the rattlers, 1st by destroying the denning sites, then by the vehicles squashing the snakes.