the.com/rattlesnake
a venomous diva who warns you before she ruins your week.
means A venomous American pit viper that announces itself with a buzzing tail before it strikes.
from A plain English compound, first recorded in the early 1600s by colonists in the Americas, who simply welded "rattle" to "snake" after meeting a creature that literally rattled. The "rattle" itself traces back through Middle English to an imitative root — a word built to sound like the noise it names — and is a cousin of words in Dutch and German for clattering and chattering. "Snake" comes from Old English snaca, related to a wider Germanic family and possibly to an ancient root meaning "to creep" or "crawl." So the name is exactly what it says: the snake that rattles.
- living maraca
- rattle is hollow keratin, like fingernail clicking together
- heat vision
- pit organs sense prey by infrared body heat
- venom after death
- severed heads can bite for an hour
- silent generation
- some are evolving quieter rattles to dodge humans
- baby danger
- newborns hatch fully venomous with fangs ready
sidewinder rattlesnake — unique locomotion method moving sideways across hot desert sand in mojave and sonoran deserts