HOUSTON CHRONICLE (Texas) 23 August 06 Snakes don't need a plane to soar the highest - No other animal measures up when tall tales are spun about 'the big one' (Joe Doggett)
Exaggerated observations are a common denominator in the "great outdoors." Even veterans of the woods and waters are given to stretching the truth.
This may not be a conscious misrepresentation; dramatic and wild encounters have a way of growing in the imagination. The observer convinces himself and passes it on. We've all done it.
Fish weights and deer antlers are among the major recipients of inflation. But no leaping trout or bounding buck can equal the wide-eyed, arm-stretched bounty afforded to big snakes.
Tales of thick-as-your-leg rattlesnakes are common around campfires across South Texas. It just isn't so. The imagined girth is way out of proportion to any native snake in North America.
And you won't have to hunt on too many leases or sit in too many cantinas before you are regaled with a friend-of-a-friend's account of a 10-foot rattlesnake. Oddly, no credible herpetologist ever has documented such a colossal rattler.
Even snake weights are ballooned beyond belief. A photo that resurfaces periodically on the Internet depicts a man of average dimensions holding at arm's length a dead diamondback draped over a clamp-type stick.
The rattler obviously is a monster, but the caption proclaims "9 feet, 1 inch," with a weight of "97 pounds." The length probably is closer to seven feet and the weight more like 15 pounds. Maybe reaching to the extreme, give the brute 7 1/2 feet and 16 or 17 pounds. These are documented figures for top-end diamondbacks.
Dead snakes (and skins) can be stretched, increasing the true length by more than 20 percent. Length aside, use logic and contemplate holding approximately 100 pounds at arm's length. The account might be well-intended, but it illustrates the exaggeration that often accompanies snake reports.
Hollywood's latest effort, Snakes On A Plane, only fuels the sensational embellishments. In an effort to put big snakes in honest perspective, here are a few facts from A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the United States by Roger Conant:
•The four largest snakes documented in North America are the eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon corais), 8 feet, 7 1/2 inches; eastern coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum), 8-6; black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta), 8-5; and bullsnake (Pituophis melanoleucus), 8-4.
All are non-venomous species harmless to man; in fact, all are beneficial, being great rodent-catchers.
•The largest poisonous snake in North America is the eastern diamondback rattle-snake (Crotalus adamanteus), 8-0. The western diamondback (Crotalus atrox) is the runner-up, documented at 7-0.
Although the rattlers are shorter than the listed non-venomous species, exceptional girth makes them significantly heavier.
These are the findings from a single text published in 1958; obviously, other large snakes have been recorded. Famed herpetologist Raymond Ditmars in A Field Book of North American Snakes (1939) lists the record for the eastern diamondback at 8-4.
Eastern diamondbacks are native to the southeastern states. Writer/naturalist Archibald Rutledge (poet laureate of South Carolina) made a dedicated effort to document the huge rattlers of the southeast. In "Encounters with Diamondbacks" in Outdoor Life in March 1979, he detailed various research forays for the giant pit vipers.
9-footer in South Carolina?
Rutledge claimed that a rattler "over nine feet" was killed by Claude Marlowe, a farmer near Charleston, S.C. The head was shot from the snake. Using a steel tape on a flat surface, Rutledge and an assistant reportedly obtained a straight measurement of the unstretched snake at 8-11 3/4 .
Again, this is hearsay, but Rutledge was a respected professional, not a sideshow barker. He communicated with snake experts such as Ditmars (curator of reptiles, New York Zoological Park) and Ross Allen (Ross Allen's Reptile Institute, Silver Springs, Fla.). I'm inclined to buy the account.
Rutledge credited Ditmars with two diamondbacks taping 8-8 and 8-6 (subsequent to the 1939 book).
This is interesting information — but from a long time ago. But that, in itself, is significant. The golden era (if you'd care to call it that) for giant rattlers might have ended about 50 years ago. Dwindling habitat and expanding urbanization continue to hamper top-end potential, especially across the region of central Florida, Georgia and South Carolina where the eastern diamondbacks flourished.
The western diamondback native to Texas is slightly smaller — although still a monster of the realm.
John Werler and James Dixon in Texas Snakes (2000) lists the "approximate maximum length" of C. atrox at 7-4. Alan Tennant in Lone Star Field Guide/Texas Snakes (2006), weighs in with "several recorded western diamondbacks have measured from 7 to 7 1/2 feet."
These are among the marks documented by scientific research. But it is possible, even probable, that larger Texas rattlers have existed.
Good habitat for growth
The western diamondback may be winning the North American heavyweight title by default. Werler and Dixon stressed that many of the largest snakes (both diamondbacks and indigos) are found on the large ranches in South Texas, where the vast acreages of native brush allow the big reptiles to attain full maturity and growth without intervention from man.
We know the Texas rattlers occasionally top seven feet. With easy living and an abundance of rats and cottontails, who knows — maybe a legitimate 8- or 9-footer is cruising with thick coils, rasping scales and flickering tongue amid the mesquite tangles and pear patches.
That's something to think about the next time you forget your snake chaps.
No other animal measures up when tall tales are spun about 'the big one'