Largest WD I've ever seen...

Unfortunate that they felt the need to kill it. Supposedly it it was 9 feet long and 97 pounds, although looking at the picture I find that weight hard to believe. The way the picture was taken is also distorting the size of the snake, but there's still no doubt that's a BIG snake.

Here's the text that went with it:
"his snake was recently found at the old Turkey Creek gas plant
located just south of the Alibates Turnoff on Highway 136 south
of Fritch Texas.
[THAT'S JUST NORTH OF AMARILLO]"

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...2/image001.jpg

Is a WD a Western Diamondback rattlesnake? I had no idea rattlers could get so big!

Yep, Western Diamondback. I've seen a large one in the desert near Baja, but it was "only" about 6 feet.

What a beautiful creature.. I have a picture of a canebrake rattler that looks to be bigger than that one.

That's awesome, too bad they saw the need to kill it