Timber Rattlesnakes

[jknudson]

My brother works for the Minnesota Conservation Corps and sometimes works on jobs with the MN Department of Natural Resources. Today they happened to be checking on some Timber Rattlesnake (C. horridus) dens to do a count in one area here that they had done habitat reconstruction to last fall.

They set up trail cameras to get pictures of the snakes as they enter and exit their den sites. He brought some pretty cool pictures home to show me, so I thought I would share.











http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lip/timber_rattlesnake.html
That's the program that he's involved with currently.

Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. Pretty cool stuff from a non-snake person.

[Patrick Long]

wow that is pretty amazing research there.

Did they rebuild just for Timbers?

[jknudson]

wow that is pretty amazing research there.

Did they rebuild just for Timbers?

They didn't rebuild many dens per-se, did dig some out but mostly reclamation of the habitat, by prescribed burns and cutting out invasive plant species. But yes, they did most of the reconstruction for Timber Rattlers.

There are only two venomous species in Minnesota, both of which are pretty rare in their ranges. The Timber Rattlesnake and the Massasauga.

Both of these Rattlesnakes would live in the Mississippi river bluffs in SE Minnesota, however there hasn't been a Massasauga sighting for quite some time, they are considered "endangered".

My brother said they have found other species of snakes in the Rattlesnake dens such as bullsnakes and garters, other than that, fairly stable numbers of Timbers.

[Jerhart]

That is very interesting. I recently went to King and Queen's Bluff to do some research for a project at school. It was actually a conservation site for timbers

[BMorrison]

Those are some awesome pictures. I love the rattlers... they're so fussy looking!