Crotalus is a scientific name meaning rattler. You can recognize it by the first word in scientific name for rattlesnakes.
Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that belong to a family called pit vipers. It is the most feared snake in U.S.A. Some rattlesnakes are large like the eastern and western diamond back rattlesnakes and small like the pygmy rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes cause about 200,000 deaths a year. Most deaths are in North America from Canada to Mexico and some in South America. The way these snakes were named was by their warning rattle.
Rattle snakes can survive in different climates, for example the Cascabel is a South American rattlesnake. It can survive in tropical regions. Also the mojave(Moe-ho-vae) rattlesnake can survive in desserts and caves...caves...caves...
Rattlesnakes use himo toxic venom. Soon there will be heart and lung failure to the victim. All rattlesnakes along with snakes are carnivores, the smallest of snakes eat insects while bigger snakes prey on animals as big as deer. Rattlesnake diets include - large insects, rats, mice, other rodents, rabbits and small birds.
While hunting the snake has to track down it's prey, and how does it do that? That's easy they catch scent molecules with their fork shaped tongue. Then they take the tongue to the bottom of their upper jaw. The upper jaw has an organ that senses what that is, and that is how they track down their prey. The rattle snake then uses it's pits to see how warm the prey is. Lastly it strikes the prey when the prey wanders closely. It uses a muscle to get venom from the gland and drops in enough venom to kill it's prey. For rodents it lets them run off and it tracks them down till their dead. But for birds they hold on.
Although rattlesnakes are aggresive and venomous. they do have predators. Birds of prey, and other carnivores such as bobcats, coyotes, wolves, Indigo Snake, and King snakes
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