Son Sneed caught sight of a Praying Mantis in our garden this morning. It has been a very long time since I have seen one. Praying Mantis is listed as a beneficial insect by the USDA, but not everyone agrees, since it is an indiscriminate eater, devouring other beneficial insects as well as pests. He is welcome at our house, despite his eating habits.



One commenter on yesterday's post wondered jokingly if acting sad would keep rattlesnakes away. That would be no. What keeps rattlesnakes away is a lack of food from the destruction of habitat. Since our fair city is now about a hundred square miles of development, the rattlesnake food sources are long gone within its bounds. Rattlesnakes in our area are now most common in the outlying areas of the city, such as the resort where Mrs. Tennessee was bitten.

The Mrs. America pageant is being hosted by the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, in the foothills of the Santa Catalina mountains. Prime snake habitat. Ventana is a Spanish word meaning window and Ventana Canyon gets its name from a window-like opening in the solid rock at its top.

The folks at the hotel say that this is the first snake bite mishap that they have had at their facility. Lucky for the guests that rattlesnakes are timid creatures, or there would be many, many more. Since humans are not prey for snakes, they tend to try and ignore us. If only we would do the same.

Most snakebites occur when someone unwittingly steps on a snake or reaches under something without looking. Another common reason for snakebites is young males goofing around a rattlesnake. Often alcohol is involved. These snakes are aggressive only to the extent that they will fight if provoked and being stepped on by a beauty queen or poked at by a drunken baboon are certainly provocative. Too often these encounters end badly for the snake.

Rattlesnakes are a key component in the food chain of the Sonoran Desert. They provide critical rodent control. Adult snakes typically have no real natural predators of their own, but younger snakes fall prey to large birds and coyotes. The chief threat to adult rattlesnakes is people. Killing at the hands of a frightened human or being crushed by a car are quite commonly the end for a rattlesnake. Blading the desert to build houses is also a big killer of these reptiles.

Arizona is home to seventeen species and subspecies of rattlesnake. Far and away the most common and the one Mrs. Tennessee encountered, is the Western Diamondback. This variety is superbly adapted to its environment and is mostly invisible in its habitat to the passerby.

Unmolested the snake can reach a length of 6 feet and weigh in excess of 12 pounds. Achieving that size has become less common as more and more habitat is destroyed. People are a negative influence in rattlesnake development and longevity.

Myths abound when it comes to rattlesnakes. They basically just eat and make baby rattlesnakes. They don't seek out contact with things that are not food, they can't throw themselves great distances, they cannot out slither a walking person, much less a running one, and they don't travel in pairs.

They are solitary for the most part and only congregate to reproduce or hibernate. They can strike a distance of two-thirds of their body length maximum and any movement by the snake will be away from a person, not in pursuit. The best policy when encountering a rattlesnake is to move away and leave it alone. Both you and the snake will be better for having done so.

The rattlesnakes use their venom to immobilize small rodents and other mammals that make up the bulk of their diet. The venom of most rattlesnakes is hemotoxic, which means it attacks the red blood cells, causing massive tissue damage. The Mojave Rattlesnake also has neurotoxic venom, which attacks the nervous system. This is usual in Old World snakes and rare in New world ones.

Often, when the snake strikes for defensive reasons, rather than to secure prey, it will release little or no venom. There are sound survival reasons for snakes to conserve venom for its intended purpose. Since even the petite and lovely Mrs. Tennessee is too big to be a meal for the snake, it likely didn't give her a full dose, which explains her early return to the competition.

So there you go. That's about all I know about the Western Diamondback rattlesnake and Mrs. Tennessee for that matter.

Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky