HERALD-TRIBUNE (Sarasota, Florida) 24 February 06 7-foot rattlesnake meets its match in North Port (Erin Bryce)
North Port: A motorist ran over a rattlesnake nearly 7 feet long on Tuesday, with a body as big around as a man's leg.
Longtime animal control officer Win Sell identified the snake as an eastern diamondback -- the biggest one he's ever seen here.
Reptile experts are skeptical.
It would be extremely rare to find an eastern diamondback that big, said Florida Museum of Natural History reptiles curator F. Wayne King.
But if Sell can confirm it's an eastern diamondback, King hopes the officer will consider donating it to the museum.
"If he's got it, I'd love to see it," King said. "The best way to verify it is to preserve it."
Right now, the snake is being preserved in Sell's freezer, where he put it to die after capturing it live.
Many rattlesnakes in Florida are losing their habitat to development, and big ones are becoming increasingly rare finds here, King said.
"Most rattlesnakes simply don't live long enough to get that big," he said.
In North Port, the fastest-developing area in the county, Sell said he typically responds to one rattlesnake complaint a week.
"It's not so much that there's more snakes; there isn't," Sell said. "There's just more people here to see them."
On Sunday, Sell pulled the rattlesnake out of a ditch after a man ran over the snake's tail with his pickup.
The snake, pinned to the soft dirt by the driver's side front tire, thrashed as Sell used a snake pole to pin its head and grab it.
"It was softer ground, so it wasn't like he was smashed," Sell said. "He was quite frisky."
The driver, who lived nearby, ran over the snake's tail to stop it from escaping back into the woods at the corner of Oceanside Street and Haverhill Avenue, Sell said.
"His head was about the size of a good-sized apple," he said.
Sell intends to mount the snake's skin and use it to teach kids about the diamondback.
The Gainesville museum is hoping to change his mind. Sell said he'll call it.
7-foot rattlesnake meets its match in North Port