RATTLESNAKES AND ALCOHOL DON'T MIX
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
- T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"April also breeds rattlesnakes! As ground temperatures rise, these cold-blooded reptiles leave their burrows, where they have spent the winter coiled in hibernation, to find food. After they've bulked-up a bit, the mating urge kicks in. When reproducing, rattlesnakes can entwine for up to 24 hours non-stop, and return to the feeding habits which make them the most despised and feared reptile in North America.
The rattlesnake's deadly venom evolved not to defend it from its enemies (although it works just fine for that), but to capture and kill its main prey, rodents. The chemical content of the venom varies with species, season, climate, nutrition and other factors. It's a brew of lethal enzymes which attack the blood (hemotoxins) and, in some species, neurotoxins, which attack the central nervous system (respiration and heartbeat).
When it strikes, a snake injects the venom through hollow fangs that fold down from its upper jaw. The bite can be delivered in as little as 1/30 of a second, says Bob Myers, director of the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque's Old Town, and he should know. Six years ago, Myers was bitten while showing a camera crew how to milk a snake's venom. Although it could have been fatal, Myers said that "hitting my finger with a hammer one time hurt a lot worse than snakebite." The venom felt like electrical currents running through his body. Fortunately, the late Dr. George Key, a University Hospital emergency physician and amateur herpetologist, treated Myers and he suffered no lasting injuries.
Despite the rattlesnake's fearsome reputation, that's fairly typical of snakebites, says Dr. Patrick McKinney, medical director of the New Mexico Poison Center at the University of New Mexico Hospital. The Center gets 20-40 snakebite calls a year, although many bites probably go unreported. Out of about 2,000 snake bites each year in the U.S., McKinney estimates that only 5-10 are fatal, putting rattlesnakes way behind bees as dangerous creatures, and far behind deaths from DWI, smoking, and other avoidable behaviors.
In fact, rattlesnakes probably evolved their rattles so biting you would be an avoidable behavior! They're not altruistic, they just need that venom to capture food, so why waste it on a big, blundering, inedible biped? It's more adaptive to warn you off with that buzzing rattle.
Some humans, however, don't take the hint. While accidental snakebites do occur, most people get bitten because they mess with the snake, or try to kill it. "Many of these non-accidental bites occur in intoxicated persons," McKinney dryly notes. And even a decapitated snake head can bite you! If you are bitten, forget all those home remedies you've heard, especially cross-cutting the wound and sucking out the venom. You won't get much venom, you might sever a ligament or vein and you could get a nasty infection. Go to an emergency room and get the antivenin, the only proven treatment for snakebite.
Fortunately for both species, our attitudes toward these scaly vermiphages are improving. Rattlesnakes eat deer mice, which can carry the 50% lethal hantavirus.
"I used to get about a hundred calls each summer, people calling me to get snakes out of their yard," Myers says. "Now people are asking me where to get snakes to get rid of rodents! People are starting to come to the realization that snakes are not there just for fun. If they're in you're yard, there must be a food source."
Some Native American traditions equate the rattlesnake with lightning, and we would be wise to regard them the same way: a beautiful but dangerous force of nature, best observed and appreciated from a distance.
(Thanks to Josh Butler, a UNM undergraduate biologist, for his contributions to this story. Photo courtesy of Bob Myers and the American International Rattlesnake Museum.)
Malcolm J. Brenner is Public Affairs Representative for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.
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