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I thought I would post this picture. Take only a glance at the picture and ask yourself if you just saw a Western Hognose or not.
Click here for the link

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"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Governor George W. Bush, Jr.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

That's awesome. I always thought they looked like the western massauga the most. I also read somewhere that different locality immitates the rattlesnakes of that locality. All in all, pretty cool to me.
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1.1 normal phase
1.1 red phase
0.1 yellow phase

I have twice seen hots confused with hogs..

I was hunting for kennerlyi in Van Horn, Texas one morning and seeing no snakes. Right as I was headed back towards home, I came up on a 18 inch snake flattened out on the road. I looked out the truck window and said "Hognose"! I was pumped.
I jumped out and was ready to reach down and pick up the hog when I realized I was about to pick up a yearling prairie rattlesnake! (I did find my first kennerlyi about 5 minutes later).

A few years later, a friend and I were herping in N. Florida, hoping to find eastern or southern hogs. We came across a huge piece of a roof laying alongside a dirt road. It took two of us to pick it up and as we held it up, I said "nothing". My friend said, "OK then, just pick up that hognose for me then". I looked and there at the edge of the board was the posterior part of a grayish eastern Hog. I was surprised I hadn't seen it, but I let him hold up the roof while I reached for it. As I bent down to pick up the hog, I realized it was a pygmy rattlesnake.

I have also seen Western Massasaugas on the road that I thought were hogs at first glance.

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Chris Harrison

Great stories Chris!

I am disappointed that I haven't seen more references to the Heterdon sp mimicry, not only behaviorly but also coloration and hissing. I have always thought that the phlemmy hiss of the hognose could easily be mistaken for a rattle.

That's why when I saw that picture that I immediately compared it to my Western that has almost identical pattern and color.
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"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
Governor George W. Bush, Jr.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)