A world-respected Tallahassee biologist has written what’s being called the most complete book ever about the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. For the author, Natural Scientist Bruce Means, this is a creature that prompts far more fascination than fear.
Bruce Means has written dozens of books and penned hundreds of scientific articles on all kinds of animals, especially reptiles and amphibians. But his near-obsession with the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake really took off years ago as he was doing some work at the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy near the Georgia line north of Tallahassee.
“I got a little irked because the Station personnel would kill venomous snakes,” he recalled. “Well this is a research station and so you’d think at an ecological research station that nothing would be harmed.”
Scientist that he is, Means’ was not only compassionate, but also curious.
“One day, some of the workers shot a rattlesnake and I took a look at it and brought it in. So I went to the literature and discovered that there almost known in the scientific literature about this wonderful animal.”
And what information there was out there, Means found, was almost all based on the relatively infrequent – and often unfortunate – anecdotal interactions between people and these snakes.
“As the snake’s crossing the road, you get out, or you see it in your yard and you approach it and the snake all of a sudden realizes it’s been discovered and it coils up and it rattles and if you get too close it will strike. And so everybody’s impression of this rattlesnake is it’s a mean and threatening or dangerous animal.”
After many years of hands-on research, including actually being bitten by the subject of his inquiry, Means found this particular species was anything but the scary creature of popular legend.
“And out of 5,000 encounters on my study site, there weren’t more than like 12 times that the rattlesnake ever rattled before I saw it or got to it. So meaning like 99 percent of the time they’re in nature, they’re hiding and they’re relying on two forms of crypticity: camoflauge and behavioral; they won’t make a noise or sound off unless they think they’re threatened.”
Today, Means said the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake is more threatened than ever. The evidence, he pointed out, can even be found in places like Whigham, Georgia, which hosts an annual rattlesnake roundup.
“All of the roundups have had tremendous declines in the numbers (of snakes) brought into them. And even more telling than that is the size of the snakes that win the prizes for the biggest snakes: they started out being 10 to 12 pounds and now they’re down to 5 and 6 pounds.”
Of course, there are those folks who simply see no need for poisonous snakes like the Eastern Diamondback and would prefer they be wiped off the earth. Biologist Means believes every species – including rattlesnakes – has a right and reason to be here.
“They have evolved, like us, over the same long evolutionary time that humans have, through all the trials and tribulations that we have and I think they have the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any other living thing on the planet.”
And now, many years after his surprising discovery that no such document existed, Means has published the definitive story of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. Entitled, “Diamonds in the Rough”, it contains a stunning collection of facts, figures, graphs, charts and maps. But beyond all the painstaking science, there’s a playful and entertaining side to the book, which keeps it from reading like a college biology text. Despite all the labor he put into it and his obvious pride in the finished product, Means insisted it’s not his best work.
“I’m an ecosystems ecologist. So I’ve written and co-authored with Ann Rudloe and Ellie Whitney books on the entire ecology of Florida; all of the habitats from long-leaf pine to swamp environments and all that. And if you ask me what I’m the most proud of, that’s my competency and what I produce in scientific and technical and popular stuff out of that is of far greater contribution than what I’ve done with the Eastern Diamondback. Although the rattlesnake is much more attention-getting…spiders and snakes and such,” Means laughed.
“Diamonds in the Rough: the Natural History of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake” is now the latest attention-getting book by Bruce Means. So far, it’s available only through the Tall Timbers Research Station, or directly from Dr. Means’ website: www.brucemeans.com.
