What is it about snakes? Why is it that many otherwise rational and intelligent people harbor a deep-seated fear, or worse, a vitriolic distain for these animals? Of course, there is the story in Genesis, about how a serpent caused man to fall from God’s grace, but fear of snakes is not limited to religious people. It has been suggested that our early ancestors faced two formidable groups of predators when they first left the trees in Africa- big cats and large pythons. It’s been hypothesized that our ability to see color, detail, and movement are all adaptations that allowed our ancestors to spot snakes at close range, and allowed them to survive and pass those traits on to us. While early hominids that lacked those traits…………… well, they didn’t become our ancestors!
The research on the development of snake phobia is pretty interesting. Human infants, as it turns out, are not innately afraid of snakes. They are however, quicker to detect and more interested in, snakes than in other animals. There is something special about snakes, that part seems to be innate. The fear itself though, appears to be cultural. It’s when a child sees his or her parent react in fear towards a snake that the child learns the fear. Somehow, while I was growing up, I got that innate “snakes are special” part, but I somehow missed the learned fear part. Of all the groups of animals on Earth snakes are my favorites. And of all the different groups of snakes on the planet, I am most fond of rattlesnakes.
All the fear and loathing that some people have for snakes, can be multiplied by a couple powers of ten for rattlesnakes. Why? Yes, they are venomous, and many species possess a venom virulent enough, and can inject it in large enough quantities, to cause serious injury, or even death, in humans. But that is not at all the snakes’ goal. Rattlesnake venom was evolved to subdue prey and to begin the process of digestion, not to harm people, (or any other large animal for that matter). My experience with rattlesnakes is that they would rather do anything, (hold still and hope you don’t notice them, flee, rattle to warn you off, hide their head beneath their coils, etc.), than to waste venom biting you. Biting is a worst-case scenario, “I do this, or I die”, last alternative for the snake.
As evidence of the general good nature of rattlesnakes I present the photograph above of a large, male Western Diamond-back found out crawling in mid-August. Maybe his size freed him from worrying about most predators or other males, but he was exceedingly calm as I approached him. I laid down on the ground in front of him with my camera and macro lens and inch-wormed closer and closer, until when the front of the lens was less than a foot away from him, he made a few brief tongue flicks. This let me know that I was about as close as he would tolerate, so I took a few frames, pushed myself backwards a bit on my belly, then got up and left him, exactly as I first found him.
This sort of encounter with rattlesnakes has been the rule, not the exception, for the nearly five decades I’ve spent watching and photographing them. I approach rattlesnakes in the same way I approach other wildlife, as non-threatening as I can possibly be, and the snakes return the favor. No fearsome show of fangs, usually not even a rattle, maybe a tongue flick or two. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even like to photograph them when they are acting defensively, coiled and rattling. After all, they only do that when they feel threatened. I’d rather take pictures that show rattlesnakes as I’ve come to know them, and as I hope others will come to know them too.