There are countless debates over nature verses nurture but what i am specifically interested in is opinions on the adult size of snakes given captive care conditions verses their natural conditions.

I have, for many years, been on a quest to find the dwarf eastern diamondbacks. i heard a report of an inland in the Gulf of Mexico that yields a race of reduced size EDB's. after years of research, i came across someone that knows it. He took a pair off of the island in 1959. he tells me that his never exceeded 30 inches and he has never heard of one that exceeded 3 feet. obviously, something in the island conditions has stunted the growth of the snakes. i am thinking most likely reduced food intake and perhaps a shorter feeding season.

i compare these snakes to the Timber Rattlesnakes off the mountains of the far northern range. i once had breeding size female from the Adirondack Mountains that was only 18 inches. i researched the yearly average temperatures for the region and based on my knowledge of timbers, i estimate they are only feeding about 5 to 6 months out of a given year. i was searching for a dwarf sized male, but i lost the female before we could breed her. i did not know the history of this female before she came to me, so i could not tell if he had been raised on a normal captive feeding regiment or if she was held to the shortened feeding season that was natural to her. what i was interested to see with her, and with these EDB's if i can find a pair, is this: if babies captive born from the naturally dwarfed parents, will remain dwarfed if given a normal captive feeding regiment.

In term of will they remain dwarfed, i think of the dwarf retics and burms. they come from populations that have been isolated from the mainland populations for generations, and when bread and raised in captivity, they remain dwarfs. on the other side, i recall a finding couple years ago that reported most of a rattlesnakes total adult size is determined by the amount of food intake in the first 18 months of life. So, babies produced in captivity from small parents, may not remain dwarfed if feed well for the first year and a half.

i guess what is boils down to is the question, will generation after generation of reduced feeding in the wild, lead to a genetically dwarfed rattlesnake, or will these snakes reach a normal adult size when feed the same as normal snakes when they are captive produced?
Chuck Hurd Serpentology

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