National Geographic: King Rattler

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The mere suggestion of this creature

strikes fear into the hearts of many.

Legendary serpent.

Stealthy predator.

This king of the rattlesnakes won

his reputation for good reason.

In truth, his world is one

full of danger,

one that we know little about.

Look at that!

One man has set out to change that

and nearly dies doing it.

Dr. Bruce Means ventures through

the inland waterways

that went from Georgia

through Florida's panhandle.

A freelance scientist, he is often

on his own and prefers it that way.

For 25 years now,

Means has pioneered

the study of North America's

largest and most feared viper.

Means journeys into this

personal heart of darkness on a mission.

He fears for the fate of

the venomous snake he is after,

the Eastern diamondback rattler,

a proud and complex recluse slithering

toward the black hole of extinction.

For over 50 years,

I've wondered in nature by myself,

sometimes barefooted,

but usually with just my sandals on.

Where I'm heading

takes some getting used to.

There's marsh and muck,

but on the other side

there's this paradise

where the longleaf pine forest grows

and this special creature

I love so much survives.

Diamondbacks are almost

impossible to find.

Sometimes in the summer, though,

you can use the gopher tortoise

for a guide.

Pregnant snakes

often make their temporary homes

in the long burrows

that the turtle digs.

So if you find a tortoise, he can

sometimes lead you to a diamondback.

There! There's the gopher tortoise

about two feet down.

The gopher tortoise shovels out

his own burrow,

creating a home for hundreds of

other creatures large and small.

There's another gopher of sorts,

the gopher frog.

The Florida mouse and its pups.

And something we've been

searching for, something menacing.

Incredibly, this is also the home of

the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake.

A serpent scaled in diamonds,

it is among the most highly evolved

of all snakes,

among the most dangerous,

and among the most unlikely roommate

any tortoise ever had.

The perfect odd couple.

Diamondbacks only prey on

warm-blooded animals,

so the coldblooded tortoise

is safe from the snake.

Still, the snake is not harmless and

the tortoise is not taking any chances.

The Eastern diamondback rattlesnake

is as American as the bald eagle.

It is the largest rattlesnake

in the world.

This is a singular serpent.

Many snakes swim, but few take

to surfing like this rattler.

It seems as at home at sea

as it is on land.

It is the king of American snakes

more forbidding,

almost invisible and utterly silent,

but for its warning.

Its signature, the menacing rattle,

signaling the nearness of sudden death.

The snake's trademark

is made up of scales

left behind each time

the snake sheds its skin.

They scratch together when shaken.

Amazingly, the frequency is the same

as an ambulance siren.

The rattle evolved in

the ancient dance of survival.

Twelve thousand years ago,

a menagerie of strange animals

roamed the Atlantic Coast

mastodons, lamas and bison,

like this one,

were as plentiful as deer.

All are gone now from the region

but for this survivor,

the Eastern diamondback.

Having melted into his environment

through camouflage,

the viper may have evolved a signal

to spook off these big mammals.

Instead of being trampled, the snake

rattled out a warning don't tread on me.

Like the snake,

Means prefers to be left alone.

So often, it's just the doctor

and the diamondback,

man on snake,

and sometimes snake on man.

I had hoped to be one of the few

herpetologists

who studied venomous animals

and to say at the end of a career

that I had never been bitten.

Means didn't get his wish.

He suffered his first bite

in a laboratory accident

more than two decades ago.

Then a few years later, he paddled out

to a distant and deserted barrier island

off the Florida coast

to take a wildlife inventory.

The hazards of meeting up

with a killer snake

were the furthest thing from his mind.

I was wandering through the dune of

vegetation

and I encountered a rattle snake

about a three and a half foot,

beautiful looking female.

Had my camera,

so I start taking photographs.

The snake wanted to start fleeing

and I grabbed it by the tail

and threw it up into the open,

and it coiled up,

so I got more photographs.

And at that point,

I should have been satisfied,

but for some crazy reason,

and I'll never know why,

I decided I wanted to

capture the snake.

I got in front of the snake, and

I'm trying to pin the head of the snake

when it struck at me and I misjudged

how far the snake could strike.

It could strike

further than I realized.

And it, one fang got me

on the forefinger.

I looked at my forefinger and there

was a pinprick of blood there,

just beginning, a little jewel of red.

I thought to myself,

"I cannot believe I let this happen.

When he was bitten in the safety

of his lab,

he collapsed in just four minutes,

his legs rubbery and useless.

Now, he faced a half mile trek

back to his canoe.

He had no communications and no choice.

The scientist in him understood

that with every step he took,

his chances at survival dimmed,

because the long march pumped

the venom faster through his body.

And he knew from his last experience

that the legs go first.

The entire time it took me

to get myself to safety,

there was one thing that

overwhelmingly occupied the whole episode:

I kept thinking, "You're gonna do it.

Don't let this fear get you.

Don't panic. Keep going."

And I set my teeth, I mean,

I literally clenched my teeth,

and I said, "I'm gonna do it."

As the pain spread,

the paralysis set in,

and he still had to paddle

nearly a mile across the channel

separating him from the mainland.

Almost 30 minutes had passed.

Means knew from experience

time was running out.

I had many thoughts of my life

passing, you know, before me,

and most of all I worried about

my children and my wife,

about what they would think

if I would not make it.

And worst of all,

here I was in a canoe,

and suppose that I panicked

in the middle of the water and drowned

and disappeared and they'd never

have known what had happened to me.

So I kept that thing in mind,

"I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna make it."

And I get all the way to shore.

So when I got on the shore,

I tried to get out of the boat,

I couldn't move my legs.

I was totally paralyzed

from the hips down.

I just threw myself over

in the boat into the water.

My stuff dumps out into the water.

I pull myself out of the boat,

and didn't bother with it;

it floated off a ways from me.

And I literally clawed

my way to my car.

When I got to the car, I had

a problem getting the key in the door,

and my car happened to have

an idiosyncrasy about opening up,

but fortunately it opened for me.

I dragged myself up into the car,

pulled myself onto the seat.

Then I found out I couldn't drive.

It's a stick shift.

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