National Geographic: King Rattler Page #3

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like this one.

Though bitten and nearly killed

by the Eastern diamondback,

Means says his research makes plain

the snake doesn't deserve

its menacing reputation.

The Eastern diamondback rattlesnake

is not a sinister animal.

A lot of people might think that.

They rely on several mechanisms

to avoid your presence.

The first is camouflage.

There's a rattlesnake close by.

Normally you can't see the snake,

because well, I know where it is

but he's hidden in the grass

and they're very difficult to see,

so the rattlesnake is not rattling.

And they don't want to rattle

because they don't want to

attract your attention.

Human beings will go over and kill it.

But watch what happens

if I walk slowly towards the snake,

and it perceives that I'm aware of it,

which it does now,

you can hear it rattling.

This snake doesn't have a huge rattle

string, but he's beginning to rattle.

In fact, he's not rattling a lot.

This is a very complacent animal.

I might have to be a little

more threatening.

You see that he's orienting to me,

as I walk around him,

his head's turning.

Oh, this guy's quite complacent.

He can stick and reach me

if he were to strike now.

Now if I back away from him,

he'll stop rattling,

which he's done.

Generally, they rely on camouflage.

Interestingly, I touched

the snake to stimulate it,

it did jump, but it still

didn't strike me.

And it'll probably strike

at this point.

Look at that. It did sort of

lethargically as I passed it.

This is sort of the common, average

behavior of the Eastern diamondback.

Some will strike,

but in general most of them don't.

They're not the sinister animal

that people think.

And they by no means chase people.

They don't go after you.

So how can you loathe an animal

that really doesn't have dirty deeds

in its heart?

August is a brief but crucial passage

for the Eastern diamondback.

Males are on the move now trailing

the pheromones of females.

More than ever, the males are out

in the open and exposed to danger.

The females are less restless

during this time,

awaiting a mate or preparing to give

birth near the safety of a burrow.

Birds of prey are the curse of

the diamondback.

From the treetops, a red-tailed hawk

can spy a snake a half a mile away.

A pregnant diamondback,

storing fat for the dozen young

maturing inside her body,

would make for a feast.

Sensing danger overhead

sends the tortoise

and the pregnant rattler

down into the safety of the burrow.

The hawk is undaunted and

the male is still in the open.

Its talons over fangs.

The hawk dances gingerly

around its dangerous prey.

The victor shrouds

its victim from intruders.

For this rattler,

the mating game is over.

The gopher tortoise's

well engineered burrow

is both a safe haven and a refuge.

The tunnel usually slopes

some six feet underground,

but an ambitious turtle

will tunnel 30 feet or more.

Over time, as many as 350 creatures

may come and go as tenants here.

The gopher frog calls this hole

in the ground home.

Like the tortoise, it's cold blooded

and so it's safe from the diamondback.

The sheepish looking gesture is really

a reflex protecting its delicate eyes.

The barging gopher tortoise leaves

no doubt who is landlord of this burrow.

He bulldozes past the other tenants

who are preparing to head out

into the night.

Though the turtle's tunnel is

little more than a narrow hallway,

the warm-blooded Florida Mouse

occupies a one room apartment

dug into the wall.

It's tiny, keyhole sized entryway

keeps out the big diamondback.

Though coming and going is

still a risk,

she and the snake tend to keep

different hours.

The diamondback usually hunts by day

and the Florida mouse is nocturnal.

In the warmest months,

the Eastern diamondback may stay out

after hours, but not to hunt.

Instead, it will find a spot to

curl up and wait out the night.

As the orange light of day

parts the clouds,

the diamondback nestles motionless

at the base of a tree.

Rattlers are ambush hunters,

using patience, stillness and stealth.

A family of squirrels ventures

out into the day,

unaware of the deadly

interloper nearby.

The fleeing squirrel

has moments to live.

No matter where the squirrel dies,

the snake will find it.

I know when I was bitten,

my body fell apart.

As big as I am, I had a chance.

But for a small creature like the

squirrel, it's all over in an instant.

How the snake tracks its wounded prey

is not yet clear.

Means thinks a stricken animal

gives off a special scent,

a unique signature

that distinguishes it.

Food goes down headfirst, so the feet

fold easily through the gaping jaws.

The diamondback gets its meal,

and there will be no more tales

of alarm from this squirrel.

The diamondback brought a subtle

advantage to its encounter

with the squirrel, a sixth sense,

hunting through its heat sensing pits.

Means wants to understand the world

as the snake perceives it.

The growing tip of

the longleaf pine is warm.

That's interesting.

A pioneer in research, he has embarked

on a new series of experiments.

He uses a thermal camera to reveal

a world invisible to humans,

a world of heat radiating

all around us.

Here is my imprint of my hand,

right on the ground,

where you can see nothing

but leaves with the naked eye.

It's absolutely different.

Now for an experiment, I have

brought a cute little laboratory rat.

Good morning you cute little rat.

Are you ready to be a star?

We're gonna put him down

on the ground

to see what he looks like

through this infrared camera.

Alright, Mr. Rat, wander around.

Whoa!

This is fantastic.

The thermal camera dramatically shows

how heat from the warm-blooded mouse

strips it of both cover and camouflage.

While no one knows what the snake

actually perceives,

the camera offers visual evidence

of the Eastern diamondback's advantage

in hunting warm-blooded prey.

For the Eastern diamondback,

heat is an ally and in surprising ways.

Lightning is as common to Florida

as coastline,

and the bolts become firebrands

setting the forest aflame.

The snake depends on these fires,

because they sustain

the longleaf pine forest,

the diamondback's principal habitat.

Fire burns out underbrush,

allowing for new growth.

The diamondback is well adapted

to these fiery conditions

and seeks refuge from the flames.

This cotton mouth was not so lucky.

There are the quick and the dead

and the well adapted.

After the fire, a mosaic of ash

and old growth patch the earth.

A turtle navigates the embers

trying to find food.

Within a few days, fresh greens

will have punched through the ashes

and new palmetto sprays

will have fanned out.

This is the miracle of

the longleaf pine forest.

Here the role of fire is not to kill;

it's to rejuvenate.

Even tortoises seem to sprout

from the soil after a fire

newborns hungry for the green shoots.

August in the piney woods

is a season of upheaval.

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