Why does rattlesnake rattle

Most of what we think we know about rattlesnakes is off base. Here are a few of the most common misconceptions. The warm weather that brings out hikers also brings out coldblooded rattlesnakes eager to sun themselves. But even though they crave the sun, rattlesnakes do their best to avoid the spotlight.

Rattlesnakes are ambush predators, relying on staying hidden to get close to their prey. Their patterns and coloration help them blend into their surroundings. Fortunately, rattlesnakes have an unmistakable warning, a loud buzz made to startle any aggressor and hopefully avoid having to bite.

You want to figure out which direction the sound is coming from. Once you do, slowly back away. If you do get bitten, immobilize the area and avoid overly exerting yourself. Immediately seek medical attention. You may need to be treated with antivenom. Rattlesnake rattles work like a maraca with little bits shaking around inside.

Each segment is held in place by the one in front and behind it, but the individual segments can move a bit. The snake uses special high-performance muscles to shake its tail, sending undulating waves down the length of the rattle. When a rattler shakes its tail on a hot day, its muscles are lengthening and shortening as many as 90 times per second--twice as fast as the wing muscles of a hummingbird sipping nectar.

A pro basketball player sprinting to a breakaway dunk can't manage such muscle movements more than 8 times a second--almost ponderous, by comparison. You wouldn't think to look to a cold-blooded creature for lessons on how to help pro athletes and others perform better. But that's exactly what some scientists are doing. By studying how rattlesnakes are able to use their muscles so quickly and at a low cost of energy per shake, the researchers are developing new exercise techniques that may allow frail and elderly people to better avoid injury, enable patients in rehab to heal faster, and perhaps even make it possible for some people a lot shorter than basketball players to pull off those gravity-defying dunks.

A rattlesnake rattle is made of dead tissue and its owner shakes it by twitching sets of small muscles on either side of its tail. What scientists could not understand, for a long time, was how the reptile can rattle so vigorously for, in some cases, hours.

The rattlesnake combines the speed of a sprinter with the endurance of a marathoner. They found two reasons for this: First, the muscles produce little force; second, they don't rely exclusively on oxygen for fuel. The researchers also believe--though they've been unable to prove--that rattlesnakes shake not by shortening the muscles on the side of the tail toward which the rattle is moving, as one might expect, but by using their muscles as a brake.

Producing force in a lengthening muscle, they found, requires much less energy than in one that is shortening. That's why a backpacker hiking into the Grand Canyon, using most of her muscles as a brake, burns fewer calories than she does coming back out. She's moving the same amount of weight around, but the muscles that do the bulk of the work are primarily lengthening rather than shortening as she descends. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city Caracals have learned to hunt around the urban edges of Cape Town, though the predator faces many threats, such as getting hit by cars.

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Environment As the EU targets emissions cuts, this country has a coal problem. Mothers can store sperm for months before fertilizing the eggs, and then they carry babies for about three months. They only give birth every two years, usually to about 10 baby rattlers. They lie in wait until a victim comes along, and then strike at speeds of five-tenths of a second, according to the San Diego Zoo.

Their venom paralyzes the prey, which they then swallow whole. The digestive process can take several days, and rattlesnakes become sluggish and hide during this time. Adult rattlers eat about every two weeks. Rattlesnake bites can be dangerous but are very rarely fatal to humans. With proper medical treatment, including antivenin, bites are usually not serious. Their venom is extremely potent. Some rattlesnake species have venom that contains neurotoxins. She explained that neurotoxins act faster than hemotoxins and attack the nervous system.

Nevertheless, Viernum reinforced the idea that fatalities from rattlesnake bites are rare if treated in a timely manner. According to DesertUSA , there is some evidence that rattlesnake venom is becoming more neurotoxic across the board, which may be an evolutionary strategy, as some rodents are evolving to be more resistant to hemotoxins.

Rattlesnakes are pit vipers, in the same family Viperidae as cottonmouths, copperheads and other vipers. Rattlesnakes are in the genus Crotalus , and are closely related to pygmy rattlesnakes, which are in the genus Sistrurus. Sometimes called a canebrake rattlesnake, these snakes found in the Eastern United States.