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© Sedgwick County Zoo, credit: Bill Chambers

Timber Rattlesnake

Crotalus horridus horridus

Physical Characteristics

  • Head and body are pinkish-gray to yellowish-brown with a pattern of dark bands on the back and a grayish-white belly. The tail is black with a rattle.
  • Size of average adult
    • length: 3 - 4.5 feet

Diet

  • Wild: mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits, bats and other small mammals

Behavior

  • Active during the day in spring and fall
  • Active at night in summer
  • Retreats into burrows in winter
  • Spends long periods of tine coiled waiting for prey
  • Reproduction
    • mate in spring
    • litters produced every other year
    • live birth averaging 10 in number
    • young are venomous at birth

Environmental/Global

  • Habitat: heavily vegetated, rock outcrops on partially forested hillsides
  • Distribution: most of eastern half of the United States

Conservation Efforts

  • Sedgwick County Zoo opposes rattlesnake roundups and has led a petition drive to ask state legislators to ban these events
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