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Posted by David L. Martin on July 09, 2002 at 08:11:15:
In Reply to: Big EDB's -- Any New Info? posted by Byron Larkin on July 09, 2002 at 06:37:17:
It is an interesting question to me. I have not
read the Jones article, but Klauber cites a letter
from Ross Allen in which he claimed to have
personally measured a 7 foot 3 inch adamanteus.
He also shows a letter from a correspondent named
Boswell who claimed to have measured a specimen
in south Florida at 7 feet 10 inches. His other
measurements, including the tail (with rattle) at
11 inches, the length of the head at 3 3/4 inches,
and the circumference at 17 1/4 inches, would seem
to corroborate this length. In any case, I would
certainly call it "documentation." It merely
becomes an issue of whose documentation you consider
trustworthy.
The issue of large rattlesnakes is intimately tied
to population size. In past decades, the adamanteus
population was clearly much larger than it is now.
Ross Allen mentions receiving one to five thousand
per year prior to 1953. A larger total population,
and particularly lower road mortality in past years,
means more large individuals. I think it is
unlikely that there are any adamanteus today
exceeding 7 feet. But in the early twentieth
century, Florida, particularly south Florida, was
still a virtual wilderness. There were millions
upon millions of adamanteus, and few roads. A
big male adamanteus was very likely to reach a
ripe old age. Today, the opposite is true. On
the other hand, I am virtually certain there are
still wild atrox in south Texas and northern
Mexico exceeding 7 feet. This is in spite of the
fact that my data indicate that on average, atrox
in south Texas grow slightly slower than
adamanteus in north Florida. But the sheer
number of atrox on big ranches in south Texas
means that there are occasional individuals
approaching, and probably even exceeding, 7 feet.
I have a photo given to me by a game warden
showing an atrox killed near Falfurrias in the
mid 1990's. He told me that it was measured at
7 feet 3 inches, and I would say that is
reasonable based on the photo. But make no
mistake, such individuals are rare and always have
been. Snake King believed that atrox
in south Texas were, on average, larger than
adamanteus. He claimed to have measured an atrox
in 1948 at 7 feet 8 inches. I do not doubt it,
but this does not mean that the average south
Texas atrox is larger than the average adamanteus,
even today.
I think it is remotely possible that there is an
atrox out there approaching 8 feet. I think this
is extremely unlikely for adamanteus today, but
very possible historically. It is a certainty
that captive-born adamanteus have exceeded 7 feet.
