Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently found a Mojave sidewinder(crotalus c. cerastes)that has a striped pattern down the first 1/3 of it's body. The rest of the pattern is alot lighter/washed out than the other sidewinders i saw while in that area. I was wondering how common the striping is in sidewinders or other north american crotalus. I know neotropical rattlers have the paired stripes down their body as apart of their normal pattern. You can email me personally about the sidewinder by writting to; owenwilsonsnose1@aol.com. thanks.

The animal looks great but you mentioned it is a C. cerastes cerastes? I noticed right before the rattle the tail is black. I am not an expert by any means but I thought that was a trait more commonly found in C cerates cercobombus and C cerastes laterorepens. C. cerastes cerastes will usually be brown right before the rattle. I was always surprised at the trivial distinguishing factor and I would not be surprised if the two cerastes subspecies have been dropped either (it gets hard to keep up with changes, I just never read anything about cerastes changes...as there is not a lot about them published in general, compared to some of the other crotalid species). The stripe sure does look cool though. I would love to hear other comments about this. C. cerastes is one of my favorite snakes. But I will not get into why they are one of my favorite snakes since last time I mentioned it there was a close call of heated debate.

The snake was found in the northern mojave desert. i'd say that'd keep it from being a C. c. laterorepens since they are the colorado desert sidewinder and their range doesn't include the northern mojave desert.

Also let me add that it was in CA.

From your response it seems you took offense in some way to my post. But this could seem like that because the forums only show one means of communication and it is easy to read things the wrong way. Anyway, if my post seemed to question you in any way...I certainly wasn't. I am trying to learn here myself. From my understanding C.c cercobombus ranges along the sonoran desert and from what I know about US deserts (very minimal) the sonoran and the mojave run neck and neck. I have no idea what the full range of C.c cercobombus is (or even if it is still accepted as a subspecies) but I do know everything I have read says the black before the rattle is found in the other two subspecies while C.c. cerastes is brown before the rattle. But I have never seen or read anything about a neotropical mimic line behind the neck either. Being you mentioned you found the snake in the northern Mojave desert I doubt the range of cercobombus reaches that high..or even into the northern sonoran into california. But this just a guess on my part. Is it impossible the snake is cercobombus? Just someone trying to learn more here. Feel free to tell me to shut up and its just a cool looking Crotalus cerastes cerastes with a black tail. lol

it's all good man, but we only have two subs in CA....and it was found in the cerastes cerastes range

" I have no idea what the full range of C.c cercobombus is (or even if it is still accepted as a subspecies) but I do know everything I have read says the black before the rattle is found in the other two subspecies while C.c. cerastes is brown before the rattle"

I did a lil research on cerastes. What i found is that the cerastes cerastes has a brown first segment on it's rattle. it's not the coloration on the end of the tail. if you look at the picture again you'll see that the snake does indeed have a brown first segment. Thanks for helping me learn something new.

Hey, that's a really good lookin' snake. I have heard of stiping also taking place with Mojave rattlesnakes, but have not seen it first hand.

-AzAtrox

I saw a patternless mojave some years ago, but I don't think they exist anymore. I spoke with someone who saw them, they were very contained and that area has been developed, he hasn't seen one in 15 years. Mine was about 10 years ago, in a small patch of desert where I hunted lizards in the same general area.