Crotalus cerastes

Sidewinder Rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes )

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes ), internationally known by the English name as Sidewinder, is a species of rattlesnakes, which is common in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. With a maximum length of about 70 centimeters, is a medium -sized species; they do is known for her eponymous locomotion, the " crosswinds ".

Features

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake reaches a body length of up to about 70 centimeters, in contrast to all other rattlesnakes species, the females are slightly larger than males. The Body is bigger and swamped than the other rattlesnakes. The body color is matched to the substrate, ranging from a cream-colored clay over gray and yellow- beige to pink tones. The back side is covered with a patch series that is slightly darker than the ground color generally and also varied in their color and in shape, often lie in between spots that are lighter than the ground color. There are also usually darker spots on the flanks.

The head coloration corresponds to the basic color of the body, over the eyes, a darker line is going up in the corner of the mouth. About The eyes shed ( Supraoculare ) are elongated and form above the eyes a clearly recognizable and pointed horn, this formation is unique within the rattlesnakes.

The tail has four to six black -and-white bands, which have approximately the same width, respectively. The tail rattle is in this type usually only a few members and is correspondingly short.

Distribution and habitat

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake lives in the deserts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico from Baja California to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. They are also found on the island of Tiburón in the Gulf of California.

She lives only in very dry habitats of desert, often in the range of dunes. She prefers sandy surfaces and even if it occurs on gravel beds times this is usually in the vicinity of sandy dry river beds or other sandy areas.

Way of life

Like most other species of rattlesnakes this species is mainly nocturnal and crepuscular, and lives exclusively on the ground. It feeds mainly on small mammals, rarely also of lizards or birds that they kill with their bite. When a potential threat to the snake tried to escape or burrows very quickly in the sandy soil a. If the threat of intense, the snake can use their rattle to warn and thereby produce a loud rattling noise.

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake has realized with the crosswinds so-called special and encountered within the snakes only with a few species living in deserts type of locomotion, which is eponymous for them. She moves sideways at a 45 ° angle across the sand by always unrolls at two points with the entire body. Here, the head is placed and rolled, follow him the whole body, while the head already touches down in a new place. In this mode of transport caused species-specific, J-shaped tracks in the sand.

Like all rattlesnakes, this type track by means of the pit organ prey by their heat radiation, which allows hunting even in complete darkness. Due to this property, the Sidewinder Rattlesnake namesake of the AIM-9 Sidewinder, a heat-seeking air - to-air missile, which was developed on a base in the area of ​​distribution of the animal was.

Snake venom

The Sidewinder Rattlesnake, a typical rattlesnake venom with hämotoxischer effect. The main part of the poison so make of proteases and phospholipases. As a relatively small snake bite when the injected amount of poison is however quite low, so it is commonly not counted among the most dangerous rattlesnakes.