Last week or so there was a discussion about whether one could smell copperheads. Last night, just before dark, my son who was visiting and who is not the herpetologist son, came in and said it smelled like a “fruity skunk” at my front gate. I went out with him and when I smelled it I said, “there’s a copperhead close by’. My son sat on the front porch and within ten minutes he called me out and this copperhead was at the front gate.
“Fruity skunk” is new to me but I can see what he meant. The ability to smell certain things, or not, reminds me of when we grew a patch of asparagus for the market so we therefore had asparagus culls every night for a month or so. Of 6 people in the home, only my daughter could smell the affect of asparagus eating on a person’s urine. None of us could smell anything but even entering the house she was overcome with the odor which is a genetic predisposition. I believe smelling copperheads is similar.
I saw this and it was new to me. Steve is a big snake aficionado so maybe he knows.
In other snake news, rattlesnake venom may explain an evolutionary twist called Balanced Selection.
The press release has a very cool pic of a rattler on a hill as seen above. Just behind the snake the hillside is all dug up. What is that about? Were they digging for the snakes? It seems very odd and I never heard of digging for snakes like that.
Also of note, is this story on Tiger rattlesnake venom. I never heard of a tiger rattlesnake but the stripes explains why it has the name. Its claim to fame is, “The Tiger Rattlesnake possesses the simplest, yet most toxic venom of any rattlesnake species.” News to me.
As usual, open in a new tab to embiggen.