Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Rattlesnakes: Hunting and Catching Prey

Summary: Rattlesnakes are excellent hunters, but how do they do it? Join Kiersten as she explains how rattlesnakes hunt and catch their prey.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator by Manny Russo
“Pit Viper Can Detect Prey Via Heat” by American Museum of Natural History, https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/news-posts/pit-vipers-can-detect-prey-via-heat
“Snakes’ Flexible, Heat-Sensing Organs Explained” by Harini Barath, Scientific American, February 1, 2010, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snakes-flexible-heat-sensing-organs-explained
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
Transcript 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues rattlesnakes and the seventh thing I like about this misunderstood animal is how they hunt and eat their food. We have covered some of this in the fangs and venom episode. In this episode we’ll take a look at how they find their food and catch their food.
Let’s start off with how rattlesnakes hunt. They are classified as ambush hunters, which means they lay in wait until the right prey item comes to them. I love this strategy. Maximum reward with minimum effort! 
When you are an ambush predator you need to hide well so you can catch your prey by surprise. Rattlesnakes do this by sitting very still under low foliage, fallen logs, and dark crevices. The patterns on their skin, besides making them look so pretty, is camouflage to help them blend into the background. The light and dark patterning helps break up their shape so that prey items are unaware of what is waiting in the shadows.
The second adaptation that rattlesnakes use to catch their prey is their tongue. We’ve already talked about this in the anatomy episode, but we’ll recap quickly. Snakes have forked tongues that collect scent particles when flicked into the air. Those scent particles cling to the tongue and are deposited in the Jacobson’s organ when the snakes bring the tongue back into their mouth. This organ decodes the particles and tells the snake what is in their environment. It helps them decide which direction to go when moving around their territory.
Rattlesnakes have another very cool adaptation that allows them to essentially see thermally. Yes rattlesnakes can see heat signatures. That’s amazing!
Rattlesnakes are in a group of snakes called pit vipers. This name comes from the fact that they have pits in their faces. Now, they didn’t have bad acne. These pits are by design. The heat sensing organs called ‘pits’ are located  between their eyes and nostrils. How do they work? Is it like looking through a thermal camera?
According to the American Museum of Natural  History, there is a thin membrane that connects the thermal receptor to the brain at the optic nerve. This allows rattlesnakes to see the infrared signature created by heat. They have two of these front-facing organs and this helps them triangulate the direction and distance of warm-blooded prey, even in total darkness! No night vision googles needed!
Rattlesnakes can use these heat sensitive receptors to detect infrared for up to three feet. That’s not a terribly far distance, so they use their thermal pits to help pin point where the prey is after they’ve used their sense of smell to find them. 
In 2010, a scientific study discovered the molecular process behind snakes’ night vision. They examined the nerve receptors in the pit organs of a rattlesnake. What they found was truly fascinating! Rattlesnake thermal pits produce a protein that, in other species of animals, including humans, detects chemical irritants. In rattlesnakes these “wasabi receptors”, as they are called, evolved to detect heat instead of irritants. 
Now we still don’t know exactly how snakes turn the information they receive from their thermal pts into infrared images. The membrane transfers the information to the brain, but how is it translated into a thermal image? A theoretical model proposed by University of Houston and Rutgers University researchers suggests an answer. They based some of their model on natural occurring pyroelectric materials. In nature these materials are rare but can be found in hard crystals. These types of crystals are not found in snakes. But what the paper proposes is that some soft cells can act as weak pyroelectric under certain circumstances. 
Quoting from Scientific American, “Sharma and his team developed a mathematical model to show how static charges would move in a material that is deformable and responsive to heat.” End quote. A soft material such as the membrane in the Rattlesnake’s brain. The theoretical tests that they ran showed that when a membrane thickens in reaction to increased heat, the charge on its cells should shift slightly which can result in a voltage charge that can be detected by the nerve cells. This may be how rattlesnakes use their thermal pits to see prey in the dark.
Real world research needs to be performed to prove that this is how it works, but it certainly is an intriguing idea .
Now that we know how rattlesnakes find their prey let’s look at how they catch their prey. As I said before, most of the time rattlesnakes are ambush predators. They employ a sit and wait approach to finding food. Once an appropriate item comes along and has been pinpointed, they will prepare themselves to strike. 
When waiting for prey to appear, rattlesnakes will rest with their head laterally coiled on another curve of their body. The neck will look like an S-shape and is often resting on the rest of its body that is coiled in a circular shape. This gives them the perfect amount of leverage to strike at prey. When striking prey, the snake thrusts downward with a kinking and twist in the neck. This applies greater pressure to embed the fangs deep enough so that the injected venom will do its job. Once this is done, the rattlesnake let’s go. This is all accomplished in a mater of seconds. 
The venom will act on the prey item right away and the animal typically doesn’t make it too far from the rattlesnake. If it is able to wander far enough away that the snake can no longer easily see it, they can follow the distinctive scent of their own venom to find it again. 
As discussed in the Fangs and Venom episode, the venom doesn’t only dispatch the prey item, it also begins the digestion process.  
So what do rattlesnakes eat? Excellent question listeners! I love it when you think ahead. All snakes are carnivores, which mean the eat meat. There are no snakes out their chowing down on grass or shrubby plants. They can get some veggies if they other animal they eat is a herbivore, but that’s it. 
When thinking about what snakes eat the first animal that comes to mind is mice. This is often a staple of any snakes diet but rattlesnakes do eat other types of animals. Small mammals, birds and the young of large mammals are the most frequent prey items but insects, arthropods, lizards, other snakes, frogs, toads, salamanders, and bird eggs can also be consumed. Occasionally they might be cannibalistic, eating neonate rattlesnakes. 
Young pygmy rattlesnakes eat mostly small small frogs and lizards, but adult pygmy rattlesnakes prefer voles, shrews, and deer mice. This is a trend that can be seen in many species of rattlesnakes. The young will eat smaller amphibians and reptiles but when they are adults they switch to small mammals. 
Massasaugas frequently eat small mammals and birds but will consume frogs, crayfish, fish, and lizards. I’d like to see these snakes catch a fish! The indigenous rattlesnake of Coronado Island is forced to be diurnal due to cool weather conditions eats mostly lizards because the rodents that live their are nocturnal. One of the most interesting prey items is eaten by the banded rock rattlesnake and ridgenose rattlesnakes. They eat large centipedes in genus Scolopendra.
This is risky business because these centipedes are large, have a rigid exoskeleton, and have huge pincer-like fangs with which to inject their own venom. It seems that the rattlesnake strikes near the centipede’s head, embeds their fangs between the segments, and holds on until the centipede stops moving. All I have to say to that is, Wow!
That’s it for this amazing episode. Hunting and catching prey is my seventh favorite thing about rattlesnakes.
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rattlesnakes: Social Creatures?

Summary: Rattlesnakes are solitary animals. Are you sure? Join Kiersten as she turns what we know about rattlesnake lifestyles on its head. 
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
“Social Lives of Rattlesnakes”, by Rulon Clark. Natural History, March 2005.
“Kin Recognition in Rattlesnakes,” by Rulon W. Clark. Proc. R. Soc. London B (Suppl.) 271, S243-S245 (2004), DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2004.0162
“Social Security: can rattlesnakes reduce acute stress through social buffering?” By Chelsea E. Martin, Gerad A. Fox, Breanna J. Putman, and William K. Hayes. Front. Ethol, 06 July 2023, Vol 2, 2023. DOI:doi.org/10. I 3389/fetho.2023.1181774
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
The title of this episode might be a bit of a shock to you. Why are we talking about social structure in snakes? They’re solitary animals, right? Well, social structure is the sixth thing I like about rattlesnakes and it totally flipped the script on these interesting reptiles.
In general, when we think about reptiles we think of solitary animals that do not share territory, dens, or any part of their life with other reptiles of the same species. This is especially true of snakes. But maybe we’ve been wrong about this assumption. Those of you that have listened to the reproduction episode already know that mothers will share a den with their young after they’ve been born until their first shed. This was a completely unexpected behavior when we first discovered it, so we shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that rattlesnakes are social in other ways, as well.
Recent research has shed light on the social behaviors of snakes outside the natal den and, I hope you’re sitting down for this episode, because it’s going to rock your world!
In the March 2005 issue of Natural History magazine, an article titled “Social Lives of Rattlesnakes” was written by Rulon Clark. Most likely many people scoffed at the title and if they read the article at all, they certainly didn’t believe the information contained within. 
Quoting form the article, Clark says “Timber rattlesnakes live as long as thirty years in the wild, and they seem to live as stable, cooperative community members. They appear to form lasting relationships with other individuals, follow similar paths through the woods, bask together before shedding their skins under the same fallen log, and sometimes follow each other from one den to another.” I can just hear the scoffs and see the bug=eyed disbelief, but since this article was published more studies based on Rulon Clark’s research have proven him right. 
Let’s take a look at what Mr. Clark wanted people to learn about rattlesnakes when he wrote this article. Timber rattlesnakes are of great concern to anyone who loves rattlesnakes. They are native to the east coast of the Untied States and have been in decline for a very long time. Many rattlesnake researchers focus their interest on these snakes so that we can learn everything about them before they disappear forever. 
Certain northeastern states are the only stronghold left for the Timber rattlesnakes. Now you probably don’t expect an ectothermic animal to live in an area that has weather cold enough to snow every year, but they do. The way they survive is to hibernate in a den that keeps them protected from the elements. They share these dens with other Timber rattlesnakes. Let me say that again. This animal that is often thought of being solitary, shares hibernation dens with other individuals of the same species. They head to den sites around mid-October and they usually emerge in early May. Genetic research done on some of these denning sites has shown that the groups that overwinter together tend to be closely related kin.
Okay. Okay. I can hear you doubting this. Maybe you think the snakes are just returning to a place they know is a safe denning site that other clutch mates also know about. That could be true and it is probably one of the reasons that siblings are often found in dens year after year, but  that doesn’t explain why they may be found in the same sunning sites or shedding together under the same fallen logs.
There is evidence that snakes do recognize their own kin. In experiments performed with snakes born in captivity to wild caught mothers, female Timber rattlers were found to spend more time closer to related females than unrelated females. The test subjects did remain together with their mother and siblings until they shed for the first time, which typically takes a bout a week. Then the individual snakes were separated from each other for two years after they shed their natal skin. Three separate clutches were used. After two years of isolation,   rattlesnakes were placed in an enclosure with plenty of room to stay away from each other if they chose. They tested the snakes in pairs, Female and female kin, female and female non-kin, male and male kin, and male and male non-kin. They distance between them was recorded several times a day. 
Results showed that female kin choose to spend time closer together than   non-kin. 
Socializing with your kin is one thing but what about individuals that are not your relatives? There is plenty of evidence of that too. Timber rattlesnakes have been seen sunning themselves together, pregnant females congregate and birth in the same areas, they leave chemical trails that neonates can follow to find winter hibernacula, and social rattlesnakes emit an alarm pheromone when predators encroach. All of these things point to adaptations of a societal lifestyle. 
A scientific paper published in July of 2023 asked the question of whether rattlesnakes can benefit from emotional support. Okay, they didn’t exactly say that but they did ask if rattlesnakes could reduce acute stress through social buffering. According to PubMed Central, social buffering is the phenomenon by which the presence of a familiar individual reduces or even eliminates stress and fear induced responses. 
Using Pacific rattlesnakes caught in the wild, the researchers handled them, which is a known stressor for wild caught rattlers, and then placed them in a container alone, or with a coiled rope, or with another Pacific rattlesnake. Monitoring their heart rates with electrodes, the researches timed how quickly the snakes relaxed into a normal heart rate again. The snakes placed in the enclosure with another snakes recover from their stressful encounter faster than the ones left alone or with the copied rope. 
It blew my mind when I read this paper! I hope that this episode about rattlesnakes has changed the way you think about this reptile because it’s my sixth favorite things about them.  
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rattlesnakes: Fangs and Venom

Summary: Fangs and venom are two of the amazing adaptations that rattlesnakes are known for and feared for. Join Kiersten as she discusses these two valuable assets.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show notes:
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator by Manny Russo
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues rattlesnakes and the fifth thing I like about this scaly creature is their fangs and venom. These two amazing adaptations make rattlesnakes adept hunters. We took a quick peek at them in the anatomy episode but today we’re going to take a closer look at both fangs and venom.
Let’s tackle fangs first. As I said in the anatomy episode, rattlesnake fangs are found in the upper jaw of the snake near the front. The are recurved which means they curve back into the mouth. They are modified teeth, so covered in enamel like other teeth. The modification is a hollow canal that runs the length of the tooth. This canal connects the venom gland to the tooth and travels down the tooth to a small opening at the front of the tooth just above the sharp end of the fang. The tip of the fang is very sharp and is often compared to a hypodermic needle. 
There is one fang on each side of the mouth and they are the longest teeth in the rattlesnake’s mouth. The Eastern Diamondback, one of NA’s largest species, can have fangs 1 inch in length. These fangs are pretty sturdy but they can break. Since they are exceptionally important for the snake’s survival, new fangs are always growing. They sit just behind the current fang in the soft tissue of the gums. If one fang breaks another is ready to move up and grow out. This happens within a few weeks since the snake relies upon them to catch food. Older fangs are shed and replaced by a new ones even without sustaining damage.  Occasionally, the active fang will fall out only when the new fang is grown out completely leaving the snake with two fangs in the same spot.
Now, tootling around with inch long fangs hanging out of your mouth is not conducive to easy movement when your head is close to the ground. You’d catch that thing on all sorts of debris and either get stuck or drag it around with you all day. Yuck! Rattlesnakes are able to fold their fangs flat against the roof of their mouth. There is a fleshy sheath that the tooth sits in when the snake does not need them. The snake has muscular control over the fangs. They choose when to erect them or fold them. 
Let’s take a closer look at the venom itself. As mentioned before, rattlesnakes have venom glands. They have two venom glands that sit behind the eyes and connect to the canal in the fangs through a duct. The glands themselves are triangular in shape. This is what gives rattlesnakes their well-known arrow shaped head. A tendon that the snake can control pushes  the venom into the fang when they strike at a prey item. They are in conscious control of how much venom they inject into a prey item. Vary rarely do they use all the venom at one time. 
In simple terms, there are two types of venom. One affects the blood by preventing coagulation and destroys the vessels. This one is a hemotoxic venom. The second one disrupts the nervous system causing paralysis and heart and respiratory malfunctions. This one is a neurotoxin. Previously it was thought that snakes produced one or the other. But with continued research into venom, we now know that most venomous snakes have a combination of both. The percentage varies with each species and even within population of the same species. Rattlesnakes tend to have a higher percentage of hemotoxins in their venom.
Why do rattlesnakes even have venom? There are plenty of snakes out there that are non-venomous and are extremely successful creatures. So why venom? Scientists believe that venom evolved in rattlesnakes as a way to expedite the digestive process. Rattlesnakes do not wrap and suffocate their prey like constrictors do. During constriction prey item are typically squeezed so tightly that some joints and bones are broken even though it’s the lack of air that kills the prey. This process probably aides the constrictor in digestion. Since rattlesnakes do not squeeze their prey, they may have developed venom to assist in the digestion process. Venom does break down tissue. So before the prey item even hits the stomach of the rattlesnake it has already begun to break down. Considering you’re not chewing your food before you swallow, this is extremely helpful. 
Venom is clearly a dangerous substance but rattlesnake venom has inspired helpful human medicine. Studying the chemical structure of venom has led to better blood pressure medication and anti-coagulants that some people rely on to live better lives. 
Rattlesnakes are venomous, any snake that uses venom, is venomous. They are not poisonous. What’s the difference? Venom must be injected while poison is ingested or absorbed through the skin. If you get snake venom on you, as long as you do not have a cut on your skin, you’ll be just fine. You can touch a rattlesnake without fear of absorbing a toxin. For their venom to be deadly it must enter the blood stream. When referring to rattlesnakes, it is correct to call them venomous.
Does a rattlesnake inject venom every time it strikes? No, it does not. Sometimes, often when it strikes in defense, a rattlesnake will deliver a dry bite. The venom is used for digestion so why waste it on something you can’t eat? Many people have reported being bitten by a rattlesnake but not being injected with venom. We can make the educated guess that this may also happen with larger predators such felids or canids that might think a rattlesnake would make a good meal. 
Of course, many people bitten by rattlesnakes do receive a bite with an injection of venom. Typically this happens when they see only a small portion of our body, like a hand or an ankle, and perceive it as a prey item. It also happens when we are harassing a rattlesnake and will not leave it alone. So what should you do if you get bitten? 
First, remain as calm as possible and call for emergency services or travel to the nearest hospital. Remove any tight fitting clothing or jewelry near the bite that may become an issue when the area begins to swell. Tell medical personnel that you’ve been bitten by a rattlesnake. Do not catch or kill the rattlesnake to take it with you. It destroys an innocent animal and it wastes time. You do not need to identify the species of rattlesnake because the anti-venom used to treat you is the same regardless of species. And remember, the chances of dying from a rattlesnake bite are low. Quoting from Ted Levin’s book “America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake”: ‘Over the past several years, on average of five people have died of snakebite in the United States in any given year, less than one fatality for every eighteen hundred bites and most of those victims either received little or no first aid, or the treatment was greatly delayed.’
According to the CDC, you’re more likely to die from the sting of a bee or wasp, a dog mauling, a lightning strike, or an out of control farm animal than the bite of a rattlesnake. 
That’s all for this episode of rattlesnakes. Thanks for joining me to learn about their specialized dentition and their venom. It’s my fifth favorite thing about them.
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rattlesnakes: Myths

Summary: There are so many myths about rattlesnakes. Join Kiersten as she dispels some of these harmful myths.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
“Coexisting with Rattlesnakes” by Bryan Hughes. Live lecture through Desert Rivers Audubon. www.desertriversaudubon.org
 
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues rattlesnakes and the fourth thing I like about rattlesnakes is dispelling myths about them. There are so many myths about this misunderstood creature and we’re going to talk about some of them today.
Myth #1: Rattlesnakes are aggressive!
This is not true. Rattlesnakes will avoid confrontation at all costs. They do not want to strike at anything except prey or a threat that will not leave them alone. It costs them a lot of energy to strike and even more energy to bite and inject venom. That venom is very important to catching and digesting prey, so they certainly do not want to waste it.
These snakes appear aggressive because we humans can’t seem to leave them alone. For some reason everyone think it’s a great idea to get all up in their faces and poke at them with a stick then post it on social media to show how aggressive the snake is. If you come across a rattlesnake in the wild just leave it alone and give it some space. As soon as you walk away it will also leave because it doesn’t want to be in an area where they can be disturbed.
 
Myth #2: Baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than the adults!
Not true again. People think that babies have no control of the amount if venom they use, so they just squish it all out wherever they bite. Nope. Young rattlesnakes have just as much control as adults. We have to remember that they rely heavily on this venom to help them procure their food. They will not waste it if they can help it. It cost the time and energy to restock their venom.
The venom of young rattlesnakes is slightly more potent than adults because they are eating different food. The slightly altered venom helps them kill and digest the food they’re  eating. If s human or large mammal get bitten by a young rattlesnake it will most likely not be any worse than the bite from an adult.
 
Myth #3: The abandoned eggs under the porch are rattlesnake eggs! Be careful!
If you listened to the reproduction episode you already know that this is false. Rattlesnake do not lay eggs. They give live birth. Don’t freak out if you see a bunch of eggs on the ground, you do not have a nest of rattlers waiting to hatch. Most likely you have a quail or another ground bird nesting in your yard.  
 
Myth #4: Moth balls and snake repellent are a must if you live where rattlesnakes are found.
There are a lot of products out there that promise to keep rattlesnakes away, but it’s all a lie. Mothballs do nothing but make your property smell like grandma’s closet. Rattlesnakes can’t smell the moth balls and if they did why would they avoid that smell. It means nothing to them. Mothballs might keep your human neighbors away, but not rattlesnakes. The snake repellent that you spread on your lawn is also a crock. You might as well just spread the money that you spend on buying it on the lawn. It’ll work just as well. Once again the snakes don’t care about the smell, if they can smell it at all. One last snake repellent myth that has lasted from the wild west days, is that snakes won’t cross a horsehair rope. Nope. The snake might pause a moment and taste the rope with his tongue before he slides over it, but that’s about it. The best way to prevent snakes from coming near where you live is to keep your property clean.  Don’t let clutter stand in your yard. 
 
Myth #5: You can tell how old a rattlesnake is by counting the links on their rattle. 
No. Every time a rattlesnake sheds a new link is added to the rattle. Rattlesnakes can shed more than once a year. A year old rattler could have three links on their tail if it was a good food year and they grew a lot, on the other hand a ten year old rattlesnake might have eight links if they had a few lean food years. Not to mention the rattles are made of hollow keratin and can be fragile. They might lose the rattle in a confrontation with a predator or cut a few links off if it gets stuck in a crack in a rock.
 
Myth #6: If you get bit, suck the venom out!
Definitely DO NOT suck the venom out of a rattlesnake bite! Get to a medical facility as soon as possible. Sucking the venom out could get the person doing it sick because no matter how much you spit, some of that venom is going to get absorbed into your digestive track. 
Also do not use a tourniquet to stop the flow of the venom, you’ll probably just end up further injuring whatever body part was bitten. By no means, do not kill the rattlesnake and bring it with you to the hospital. The doctors do not want it in the emergency room and there is no need to identify the specific species of snake because there is only one antivenom that is used for all species of rattlesnakes. Just leave the snake alone and it’ll wander away and leave you alone. Remember it was not being aggressive toward you, the note resulted from a misstep or an intentional goading on the part of the human. As an aside here, most snake bite kits that suction the venom out are an unnecessary buy and may provide a false sense of safety.
 
Myth #7: Did you see that twelve foot rattlesnake online?
There are no species of rattlesnakes that grow twelve feet long. The picture you’re looking at is faked with forced perspective. Look closely at the photo, the snake is held out toward the camera which makes it look longer than the person holding it. Also how can an average human hold a twelve foot rattlesnake on a tiny aluminum pole without looking at all strained. The longest rattlesnakes on record today can reach 7 1/2 to 8 feet, but these animals are rarely encountered by your average Joe. They have lived a long time and know how to avoid place that make them uncomfortable, such as places where humans congregate. 
 
Myth #8: Seeing a rattlesnake is a near death experience!
This is definitely not true. I used to live in the desert of Arizona and saw my fair share of rattlesnakes and I am still hear to talk about it. I never passed out or saw the light, I just stood back and gave the snake its space and it traveled on by. I enjoyed the moment spent with this amazing animal and then went on with my day. 
Thanks for joining me today as we busted a few rattlesnake myths. I had fun and I know you learned a lot because this is my fourth favorite thing about rattlesnakes.
 
 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.
 

Rattlesnakes: Reproduction

Summary: How do rattlesnakes make baby rattlesnakes? You might be surprised! Join Kiersten as she gives you a rundown of rattlesnake reproduction.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes: 
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator by Manny Russo
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues rattlesnakes and the third thing like about them is their reproduction cycle. There are definitely a few things you probably didn’t know about rattlesnake reproduction, for some of you it may be more than a few things, and these facts will throw you for a loop.
As we learned in last weeks episode, most rattlesnakes live in temperate regions, which means they live in habitats that have both a cold season and a warm or hot season. This is important because breeding season is kicked off by warming temperatures and the basking behavior that this encourages. The timing of this activity will vary depending on species but many species will breed in spring and summer. Some will mate in fall and we currently believe this is triggered by the shortening of daylight hours.  
After the snakes have had a bit of time to warm their bodies they shed, when it’’s breeding season females will release pheromones at the same time as this shed that indicate she is ready to mate. Males, once they have warmed up enough to move around, will follow those pheromones until they find the female.
If she’s alone, the male will begin the mating ritual. First he’ll rub his chin along her head and flick his tongue gently along her back to entice her to accept him. If she doesn’t slither away, he’ll rub his body along hers, and if all still continues to go well for him she will raise her tail and give a little wave. He’ll line his cloaca up with hers so he can use his hemipenes to deposit sperm in her cloaca. The cloaca is the opening at the base of the tail where snakes do everything that entails things coming out of the body or going into the body. Mating rattlesnakes may be connected in copulation for up to three hours.
If an uncoupled female is not alone when one or more males find her, the combat dance may occur. The two males will quickly race toward each other with their heads raised. They will entwine their necks and raise their bodies up vertically. They can push themselves up almost 1/3 of their body length. When they get too high they both tumble and untangle. Then the dance begins again. The two males will continue to ‘dance’ with each other until one of them tires, is forced to the ground, and slithers away. This combat dance can last up to thirty minutes. 
Typically, fangs are never used during this combat dance. Most often the larger of the two males will win, but not always. This can happen without the presence of a female, sometimes two male snakes searching for females that encounter each other may just fight because they’re in the same vicinity.
Once sperm has been successfully transferred, the female can store that sperm for up to a year in a specialized structure in her oviduct. She’ll keep the sperm through winter hibernation until she can produce eggs that will then be fertilized by the stored sperm. This ensures that the eggs will mature at just the right time of year for the young to be born when the temperatures are warm and food is available for the young rattlers. 
It occurs to me that I’ve been talking about warm temperatures being important for reproduction. Warm temperatures are actually important for all reptiles for any activity. Reptiles are ecotothermic which means they are reliant on the temperature in the environment to maintain their own body temperature. Too hot or too cold and a reptile cannot function.
Female rattlesnakes are ovoviviparous but are often referred to as viviparous in research papers. What do all these big word mean? Ovoviviparous means they incubate eggs inside their body and the young are born live. Viviparous means to give live birth, like most mammals. So technically both definitions apply to rattlesnakes. 
Females will incubate the fertilized eggs in her uterus. For about three months she’ll carry her offspring. During this time she’ll stop eating because as the embryos grow they take up more and more room in her body. It prevents her from swallowing prey whole because there isn’t enough room for her to carry around an intact mouse while it slowly digests and her offspring. The number of embryos will vary from specie to species. Larger species can carry and birth more young than smaller species. An average number across all species can range from two to twelve, give or take. 
As the pregnancy progresses, the female will become more and more secretive and sedentary. She’ll move in an out of warm areas to ensure proper incubation temperatures for her eggs but she won’t go far. She will continue to drink water, but she and her young will survive on the fat stores that she stocked up on before fertilization occurred. The embryos are enclosed in a fetal sac or soft bodied egg with a yolk inside while in her uterus. They are attached to the sac through a primitive umbilical stalk. Some materials and gases are passed through this stalk similar to a mammal’s umbilical cord. When she is ready to give birth, she’ll find a secluded place and her young are born looking like a little version of their mother.
This next step is the one that will throw you for a loop. After her babies are born the mother and her young stay in the nest together for almost a week. She does not kick her babies out into the world to fend for themselves. We think of most reptiles being very hands off parents, but rattlesnakes are not like that. 
The mother and the newborns stay together in the den until the young shed for the first time, usually about seven days after birth. During this time, we’re not exactly sure what information is passed back and forth between parent and offspring and between siblings, but scientists think this is an imprinting period. The young may be memorizing their mother’s scent so they can follow it back to denning sites later. The shocking thing about this, not so much to me but scientist and other people, is that rattlesnake mothers actually take time to make sure their offspring are protected during an extremely vulnerable time. She’s giving them a chance at a successful life. 
Once the young have shed, everyone leaves the nest and goes on their separate ways. Growth rates will depend on available food and the environment, but if they’re lucky they can double their size in three or four months. Small rattlesnakes do have to worry about predation. Other snakes, hawks, owls, coyotes, and feral cats are all threats to neonates. 
Depending on species, males will typically reach sexual maturity at two years while females will reach sexual maturity at three years. Females will generally only give birth to young two to three times in their entire life. They take several years in between clutches because it’s quite a strain on their system to lose the weight during pregnancy. It may take them two to three years to get back up to fighting weight. 
That is all for this fascinating episode on rattlesnake reproduction. Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride because it’s my third favorite thing about this beautiful reptile. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rattlesnakes: Species

Summary: Even though rattlesnakes are only found in the New World, there are a plethora of cool species. Join Kiersten as she take a few close up looks at some wicked cool rattlesnakes.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator by Manny Russo
https://www.savethebuzztails.org
https://waterlandlife.org
https://www.fws.gov/specis/eastern-massasauga
https://www.desertmuseum.org
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues rattlesnakes and the second thing I like about this astounding reptile is the variety of species alive today.
Today we’ll start off with a little taxonomy. As a reminder taxonomy is the scientific classification of living creatures. It is a way of grouping plants and animals into families for easier study. Rattlesnake classification is as follows: Kingdom: Animalia (this means it’s an animal), Phylum: Chordata (roughly speaking they have a backbone), Class Reptilia (they are reptiles), Order Squamata (this contains lizards and snakes), Suborder Serpentes (snakes), Family Viperidae (a group of venomous snakes called vipers including rattlesnakes), Subfamily Crotalinae and two different genera including Crotalus and Sistrurus. Don’t worry there won’t be a test at the end of this episode!
Currently there are 32 accepted species of rattlesnake with 83 subspecies. Upon the advent of DNA testing, this number has fluctuated as scientists discover more information about family relatedness based on genetics versus physical characteristics or behavior. Basically what I’m saying is that this number may be correct today but different tomorrow.
The majority of species are found in Genus Crotalus and only three are classified in Sistrurus. There is one outstanding physical characteristic that separates the two genera. The scales on the top of the head of Genus Crotalus will typically be small and similarly shaped, while Genus Sistrurus will have a less uniform group of nine large scales on the crown of the head. There are always exceptions to the rule in Nature so this description is not a hard and fast rule, but a more general rule. 
Before we look at some specific rattlesnakes more closely, let’s discuss where rattlesnakes can be found on the planet. Rattlesnakes are a New World animal which means they are found only in North, Central, or South America. They can be found from southern Canada to central Argentina with the most variety found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. A few are found on islands in the Caribbean such as Aruba.
The habitats they are found in vary from desert to semi-arid desert to prairie to timber woodlands. They did not evolve to tolerate rainforest habitat. Rattlesnakes can be found in areas that have a cold winter as long as they have dens to hibernate in to keep from freezing to death. In areas that are warmer, they have adapted to living near human suburbs because they are attracted to the mice and rats that are attracted to us. In areas that are colder and the need for a denning sit that remains undisturbed through the winter is crucial, they are struggling to survive. 
Now that we know a little about rattlesnake taxonomy and where we can find them, let’s take a closer look at a few individual species.
One of the most well known rattlesnakes is the Diamondback. This snake is an icon of the wild west of the United States but there is an Eastern Diamondback as well as a Western Diamondback. The eastern Diamondback is native to the southeastern United States and can be found in the pinelands of Florida, the coastal plains of North Carolina and southern Mississippi through eastern Louisiana. The western diamondback is found throughout the western portion of the United States including Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and northern Mexico.
The two snakes are separate species in Genus Crotalus. The eastern Diamondback is Crotalus adamanteus and the western diamondback is Crotalus  atrox. As their name suggests they have large diamond shaped patterning on their back. It begins behind the head and travels down to the tail. The diamond shapes will be darker than the base color of the snakes. The eastern diamondback is typically brown or gray with the base color darkening toward the tail where dark bands appear just before the rattle. The western diamondback base color ranges from light brown to dark brown to reddish brown depending on habitat with bright white and black stripping just before the rattle. Both diamondback snakes are some of the longest and heaviest rattlesnakes alive today with adults ranging from 2 1/2 feet to 7 1/2 feet. 
Let’s look at one of the snakes in Genus Sistrurus. Sistrurus catenatus, the eastern Massasauga is a small but thick bodied rattlesnake found in the eastern portions of North America. This 1 1/2 foot to 2 1/2 foot snake is found in the northern midwest United States and Ontario, Canada. Their current range is much smaller than their historic range. They tend to favor shallow wetlands with surrounding upland areas that they use for hunting, breeding, and hibernating.
Coloration varies from gray to light brown, but some black individuals have been seen. The splotches that travel down the back are generally dark in color and resemble a colored in number eight. They will also have rows of smaller blotches down the sides of the body. The tail has a small rattle which sounds like the buzz of an insect when they are agitated. 
Let’s travel down into South America and take a look at the only rattlesnakes found there. The South American Rattlesnake or Crotalus durissus  is found in the Cerrado ecoregion of southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and northern Argentina. In Portuguese this snake is called “cascavel”. The cascavel typically makes its home in grasslands and savanna habitats although they are occasionally found in dry forests and open clearings in jungles.
Adults range in size from 2 1/2 feet to 6 feet in length. Base colors vary widely from yellow  to light brown to reddish to dark brown or even gray. Some reports of greenish tinted specimens have seen seen near forested areas. They have two stripes that run from the top of the head down the neck that fade as the body gets larger. Diamond shaped patterning flows down the rest of the body terminating at the tail where the rattle begins. Like most other rattlesnakes they are a heavy bodied snake and they have one of the widest ranges of any rattlesnake. There are several subspecies of Crotalus durissus. 
We’re going to look at one more species in depth and this is the one rattlesnake that doesn’t have a functioning rattle. That’s right, this rattlesnake doesn’t have a rattle. The Santa Catalina Island rattlesnake, Crotalus catalinensis, is genetically a rattlesnake but after years and years of living on an island they have lost their rattle. They do have the button, the base of rattle, but it comes off with every shed preventing a rattle from developing.
They are native to Isla Santa Catalina in the Gulf of California. Adults range in size from 2 feet to 2 3/4 feet. They can be found almost anywhere on the island and unlike other rattlesnake species they are often found hunting in trees. They are the most arboreal rattlesnake of any rattlesnake species. This may explain why they are more slender than any other rattlesnakes, as well. This is a lovely little rattlesnake with a grayish brown base color and large white-bordered diamond blotches along the back. The tail terminates in black and gray striping reminiscent of diamondback rattlesnake tails. These snakes can be a very pale gray with light brown blotches creating a stunningly beautiful pattern.
 
That is all for this episode of rattlesnakes. There are so many more cool species of rattlesnake but I had to restrain myself to my ten minutes limit. Thanks for joining me because the variety of species alive today is my second favorite thing about rattlesnakes. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Rattlesnakes: Anatomy

Summary: Rattlesnakes are terribly misunderstood animals. Join Kiersten as she kicks of this series on rattlesnakes with anatomy
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes: 
America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator by Manny Russo
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript 
(Piano Music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal.
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This is the first episode of my second misunderstood animal, rattlesnakes. The first thing I like about this majestic reptile is their anatomy. Since rattlesnake are snakes, we’ll start off with general snake anatomy and then we’ll talk about the physical characteristics that make rattlesnakes, rattlesnakes.
Let’s start off at the head with one of the snake’s most well-known physical characteristics and the one that has people associating it with the devil. The forked tongue is for more than just scaring humans. It’s an amazing adaptation that helps snakes interpret their surroundings. The tongue flicks in and out of the mouth to gather scent information. Snakes are essentially “tasting” the air when they flick their tongue in and out. The slightly damp tongue gathers scent particles when it is exposed to the air. When it comes back into the mouth the ends settle into the Jacobson’s organ that is situated in the roof of the snake’s mouth. This structure processes the scent particles that the tongue gathered telling the snake what’s in the environment around it. 
It’s quite amazing and allows the snake to find prey items, water, shelter, and protect itself against predators, all with the flick of its tongue. 
Moving to the top of the head, we find the eyes. This is another characteristic that freaks people out because snakes never close their eyes and some people think that they are being constantly started at with evil intent. But that’s not true, at all. Snakes don’t close their eyes because they can’t. They have no eyelids. They do have thicker lens’ over their eyes that help protect them from the environment like other animals’ eyelids. Snakes don’t have great distance vision either. So they are certainly not staring at you from several feet away. Their vision helps them pinpoint their strike when their prey or a predator is at very close range. 
At the end of their cute little snouts are their nares. Since they are terrestrial vertebrates, they do breath air. That’s what they use their nostrils for, since most of their olfaction is done with their tongues, but they do have olfactory epithelial cells that line the nasal passages. The presence of a predator or prey triggers a tongue flick, so some scent is likely absorbed through the nasal passages. 
Just below the nostrils, in between the eyes and the nostrils, are the thermal pits. As far as we know, most snakes have thermal pits, but they range in their sensitivity depending on species. These help snakes detect temperature differences in their environment. It’s another adaptation for hunting prey and keeping themselves safe. As they grow, snakes learn the differences between prey items, predators, and environmental heat signatures that might lead them to safe shelter.
When we enter the mouth, we’ll see teeth. All species of snake, as far as we currently know, have teeth. They will vary in size, placement, and number, but all snakes have teeth. When you don’t have hands or paws to help you capture or hold your food, teeth come in super handy. (See what I did there?) Hee-hee! Snake teeth do have one thing in common across species and that’s the curvature of the teeth. Snake teeth are recurved which means they curve backwards. What we mean here is that their teeth are curved towards the back of the mouth. One more indicator that their teeth are used to hold food before they swallow it whole.
Speaking of swallowing, that leads us to our next super cool snake adaptation. I’m sure many of you have heard that snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow something ten times bigger than their own mouths. This is another rumor that often sets people against snakes and it’s false. They cannot unhinge their jaws. They can expand their jaws with the help of ligaments attached to the upper and lower jaw bones. This allows them to swallow food approximately three times the size of their heads. 
Once we get past the mouth, snake anatomy is very similar to our own anatomy. They have an esophagus that transports their food to their stomach where it’s processed and passes to the small intestine through the large intestine  to the rectum and out the cloaca. They have a trachea, looks like a hole inside the mouth, leads to their lung. They can close off their trachea when eating or drinking and are able to move it around a large food item so they can breath while they eat. I’ve seen snakes I’ve worked with at zoos do this and it looks kind of like a straw sitting next to the rat they are consuming. It’ both cool and weird.
Most snakes have only one working lung, this is also true of rattlesnakes. Their right lung is the functioning lung. Overall the respiratory system of the rattlesnake, and most other snakes, is not exceptionally efficient at providing oxygen to the body. They are not into exertion, they simply don't have the lung capacity to sustain a high level of prolonged activity.
Snakes also have a brain, a heart, a liver, two kidneys, a pancreas, a gall bladder; sound familiar? Males will have testes and a hemipenes used for reproduction and females have ovaries, an oviduct, and a uterus.
This is a very basic rundown of snake anatomy. We’ll be going in depth with a few of these topics as this series progresses. For now, let’s look at three anatomical characteristics that make rattlesnakes unique among other species of snake. Fangs, venom, and the rattle.
Fangs are teeth that give the rattlesnake that menacing face, but they only use the fangs when they are striking, most often for catching prey. The fangs can be in the front of the mouth or in the back. Most rattlesnakes have front fangs that come down from the top jaw. In any snake, fangs are found only in the top jaw. Fangs are modified teeth that allow for injection of venom. They are like other enamel covered teeth but with a hole either at the base or down the middle of the tooth that allows for venom injection. In most rattlesnakes, the fangs can be folded into a pouch of skin on the roof of the mouth when they are not needed. They can be pretty long and can get in the way when swallowing food. 
Venom is what makes people fear rattlesnakes most. But this substance was mainly developed for catching prey and pre-digestion of food. According to current research, scientists believe venom was not developed as a defensive mechanism against predators. Venom generally comes in two forms: one is a hemotoxin which will eat away at the walls of capillaries and other circulatory vessels causing blood to pool in body cavities; the second is a neurotoxin which taxes the nervous system shutting down nerve impulse transmission leading to paralysis. Now these both sound pretty bad, and if you're a mouse it’s not looking good for you, but as a human or a large mammal you’re most likely just fine. Venom is produced from glands in the upper jaw of the snake’s head. I’ll dive deeper into venom in its own episode.
Last but not least, the rattle. This physical characteristic is found only on rattlesnakes and no one else. The rattle is made of keratin, the same thing that make up our hair and nails, and grows each time the snake sheds. It is essentially made from the last terminal scale of the rattlesnake’s tail. It remains behind after each shed to create another link in the snake’s rattle. The rattle is hollow and flexible. When it is vibrated back and forth a sound is produced. Research tells us that this physical characteristic is used for defensive purposes, alerting predators or other unsuspecting creatures that a rattlesnake is nearby and wishes to be left alone. The rattle is so fascinating, I’m going to dedicate an entire episode to the rattle in a few weeks.
Thank you for joining me for my first episode of rattlesnakes. This is going to be an exciting series and I can’t wait to share it all with you. I’m glad I started with anatomy because it’s my first favorite thing about this misunderstood animal.
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about rattlesnakes.
  
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Coelacanth: Conservation

Summary: Join Kiersten as she talks about the conservation status of the coelacanth and how we can help!
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes: 
https://www.iucnredlist.org
“Coelacanth: A Living Fossil From Eons Past (2023 Update),” by Lance Wilkins, Call Outdoors, https://www.calloutdoors.com
“Coelacanth, the Famous “Living Fossil” Fish, Gets Endangered Species Act Protection, Scientific American, March 29, 2016. Https://blogs.scientificamerican.com.
“Ghost fish: after 420 million years the deeps, modern gillnets from shark fin trade drag coelacanths into the light,” by Tony Carnie May 12, 2021. Mongabay, https://news.mongabay.com
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode concludes the coelacanth and the tenth thing I like about this animal is their conservation. Maybe I need to re-word that statement. I don’t like the fact that coelacanths need conservation, but it’s an important topic and we’re already working on protecting them for future generations.
One of the questions that might have popped into your head when you saw the title of this episode, is do coelacanths really need conservation efforts? I mean they live so deep in the ocean and they’ve been alive since before the dinosaurs, how could they possibly need conserving?
Well let’s talk about that.
The answer to the first question is yes, but really that’s the answer to every animal on the planet these days, but that’s a whole other topic.
Coelacanths, both the African and the Indonesian populations, do need conservation efforts. The main reason is that they are incredibly long lived animals. Recent research has shown that they may actually live 100 years or more. And, while this is exceptionally cool, it can also mean that they are slow to increase their population. Coelacanths don’t reach sexual maturity until somewhere between 35-50 years. That means they have to live at least that long before they can create more coelacanths.
The latest population numbers for Latimeria chalumnae, the African coelacanth, is estimated at just around 250 to 500 individuals. Latimeria menadoensis, the Sulawesi coelacanth, is estimated at somewhere around 10,000 individuals. We have to take the numbers with a large grain of salt because counting coelacanth individuals is extremely tricky due to the fact that they live in extremely deep waters.
Both species are listed on the IUCN Red List. This is the list that organizations all over the word use to determine what kind of protections should be developed for various species of wildlife including animals, insects, and plants. The African coelacanth is listed as critically endangered and the Sulawesi coelacanth is listed as vulnerable.
Beside the fact that they reproduce so slowly what other threats are modern coelacanths facing?
Those of you that are loyal listeners can probably guess what I’m about to say, human activity. Yes. This species that is older than a dinosaur and survived a planetary extinction event is losing its battle against humankind. I find that I have no words to portray how very sad this makes me. 
Ever since the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938, fisherman have taken advantage of scientific interest in them. Selling them for research purposes really hit its stride after the 1980’s. Before then, fisherman often just threw them back and if the coelacanth was lucky they might have survived the pressure changes of the water. But, once scientific interest in studying the coelacanth boomed in the 1980’s, fisherman began trading them for payment or other things the fishermen needed with interested scientists. 
A coelacanth can be caught fairly easily with a small, primitive boat and a long fishing line. They don’t struggle much when you pull them up and native fisher’s knew just where to look to catch them. To encourage fishermen to stop catching coelacanth, they were provided with more seaworthy boats so they could venture farther out to sea to catch other types of fish, which also took them away from the coelacanths favorite habitat. This worked well until the boats fell into disrepair and then fishermen fell back to their old habits that they could practice using their simpler boats. 
Today coelacanths must avoid two separate deep sea fishing industries.  One is the oil fisheries. This industry looks to capture large fish for the use of their oils. We have a lot of fish oil in various items that we consume, vitamins and supplements, cosmetics, and dog food just to name a few. These oils have to come form somewhere. If you can catch large fish you can use fewer of them to harvest what you want. The problem with this is that taking only a few individuals from a slow growing species greatly impacts their reproductive abilities. We’re not catching coelacanths to use in the industry, they taste terrible, but they are getting caught in the nets that fisherman use to catch the other fish. This ancient fish has become bycatch of the modern day fishing industry.
Another industry threatening the coelacanth, as well as another beautiful creature of the deep, is shark fin fishing. Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in China and it used to be only for the very wealthy, but when the economy boomed for the middle class in China they all wanted what only the elite rich could previously afford. Shark fin soup was one of those items. Fishing for sharks skyrocketed. It is essentially illegal now but it still goes on and it is one of the most barbaric fishing industries human participate in. The sharks are caught and hauled out of the water. Fisherman only get paid for the fins themselves, so they slice off the sharks dorsal and pectoral fins, then toss the sharks back into the ocean where they are left to die a slow painful death. 
Now that we have successfully depleted the oceans of a healthy population of fish, the fishing industry is diving deeper to catch sharks that live on the same waters of the coelacanths. They are using gills nets, a fishing device that is outlawed by many countries, to catch these sharks. Well, coelacanths are the same size as the sharks and they are getting caught in these gills nets along with the sharks. 
In 2014, a method of deep water release was proposed and attempted to re-release bycatch coelacanths back into their deep sea habitat. A hook and a weight was connected to the coelacanth which was supposed to release as soon as the fish hit the bottom of the ocean in their preferred habitat. We’re not really sure how it worked out because their is no data available, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of idea that would work well. 
On the bright side, coelacanths were given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2016. This allows United States authorities to prosecute any one illegally trading or trafficking in the coelacanth items. It also often encourages other countries to look at what they can do to help as well. Once the Sulawesi coelacanth was discovered, the Indonesian people fully embraced their ancient resident. Many islands have taken to educating the locals about what a coelacanth is, and pride at living with and protecting this ancient animal is high. 
The coelacanth is also protected under CITES and an area off the coast of Tanzania was declared a protected marine park in around 2019. The Tanga Coelacanth Marine Park limits fishing within its boundaries, but of course illegal fishing continues. 
What can we do to help the coelacanth? Currently their are no organizations set up to gather funds to protect the coelacanth, but the best way to save them is to get the word out about them. These are some of the absolutely coolest animals out there, so tell everyone you meet about the coelacanth! Write your biology class paper on the coelacanth, paint it in art class, have a T-shirt printed up with its cute little face, and recommend this podcast on the coelacanth to everyone you know. The most powerful tool we have right now to save the coelacanth is awareness. Help me make sure this animal survives longer than the human race.  
Thank you so much for joining me on this deep sea adventure with the coelacanth! It’s been quite a ride and we’re all better for having taking it. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me in two weeks for our second misunderstood animal series on Ten Things I Like About. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I’ll give you a hint. Scales and rattles.   
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Coelacanth: Fossil Record

Summary: Join Kiersten as she takes a trip through time with the fossil record of the coelacanth.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Show Notes:
“Coelacanth Fish Fossils, Mawsonia Woodward, 1907,” by Prof. Dr. Sc. Norman Ali Bassam, Ali Taher, Mohammad Ahmad, Mostafa Khalaf-Prinz Sakerfalke von Jaffa. https://issuu.com
“The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’.” By Lionel Cavin, Pablo Torino, Nathan van Vranken, Bradley Carter, Micheal J. Polcyn, and Dale Winkler. PLOS ONE, https://journals.plos.org
“Fossils of Cretaceous-Period Coelacanth Discovered in Texas,” by Sergio Prostak, SciNews, November 16, 2021. https://www.sci.news
“Oldest coelacanth, from Early Devonian of Australia,” by Zeroing Johanson, John A. Long, John A Talent, Phillipe Javier, and James W. Warren. Bill Lett, 2006 Sep 22; 2(3): 443-446; doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0470
“Earliest known coelacanth skull extends the range of anatomically modern coelacanths to the Early Devonian,” by Min Zhu, Xiaobo You, Jing Lu, Too Qiao, Wenjin Zhao, and Liantao Jia. Nature Communications 3, Article Number: 772 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1764
“Ghost Lineages,” by Matt Wedel, 5/2007 and 5/2010. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu
 
Music written and composed by Katherine Camp
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues the coelacanth and the ninth thing I like about this animal is its fossil record.
Throughout this series I’ve talked about the fossil’s of the coelacanth and how they are sometimes called a ‘living fossil’, so I thought we should take a few minutes to look at their actual fossil record.
As we have discussed before coelacanths are old. The first coelacanths lived about 400 million years ago in the Devonian period. This was approximately 170 million years before dinosaurs roamed the earth. No matter how many times I say it, it still blows my mind!
The fossil record of the coelacanth, just like everything else about this fish, is actually quite interesting. Throughout their long history coelacanths have been thought to be evolutionary conservative which essentially means they haven’t changed much, but when we look a litter closer at the various fossils we see a different story. Our modern living coelacanths look like something that swam right out of ancient history, but throughout their existence they have had several body shapes. 
Let’s look at the Devonian coelacanths. The best known Devonian coelacanth fossils come from the late Middle to early Late Devonian period. There are two early coelacanths that are well known, Gavinia and Miguashaia. These two genuses are considered primitive coelacanths because they are more like primitive lungfish and less like modern coelacanths in body form. What researchers look at to determine these classifications are the skull shape, the fin placement, and the tail. 
If we compare the skull shapes, in layman’s terms, of Miguashaia and Latimeria (as a reminder that is our modern coelacanth) the Devonian era  coelacanth’s skull is broader and shorter, the body is shorter and more stout, and the tail is dramatically different. The Miguashaia tail technically has three parts like the modern coelacanth but the top fin is tiny while the bottom fin is much larger. The puppy dog tail portion of the tail that runs between the two fins sort of curves up a bit. The majority of the tail fin is below the midline and is square as opposed to the rounded tail of Latimeria. 
These are the most well known fossils from the Devonian period and they are fully formed enough that they can be placed in the coelacanth timeline based on body shape. But these are not the only fossils found from the Devonian era. There were fossils found in Australia from the early Devonian period suggesting coelacanths are even older than we previously thought. Researchers are hesitating to use these fossils when phylogenetically classifying coelacanths because it’s only a lower jaw bone. The existence of a dentary sensory pore in the jaw proves it is a coelacanth, as modern day coelacanths, as well as other fossils throughout the ages, have dentary sensory pores also.
Now, there have been approximately 80 species of coelacanth fossils described from the Middle Devonian to the Late Cretaceous. The Late Cretaceous dates from 360 million years to 70 million years ago. In the Cretaceous period, two families of coelacanths are represented through the fossils that we have found. One is Latimeriidae and Mawsoniidae. 
A scientific paper published in 2021, discussed the discovery of Cretaceous period mawsonid coelacanth fossils found in the Woodbine Formation in northeast Texas. The reason these fossils are important is that they expand the regional location of coelacanths. These are the first coelacanth fossils found in North America. We didn’t know that they lived in the area of North America until these fossils were found. Researchers postulate that these coelacanths got here during the break-up of Pangea, but we need a lot more research before we have any solid theories.
One of the things I wanted to know about ancient coelacanths was how big they were. It seems like when we go back in time, animals are always bigger than they are now. Like the dragonflies that used to be as big a VW Bug, sloths that were the size of an SUV, and sea scorpions the size of small sedan. Well, some of the coelacanth fossils that we have found are complete bodies and some have enough bones to extrapolate how big the fish was when they were alive. So we have a range from about two feet to thirteen feet! Our modern coelacanths seem to have settled somewhere in the middle. 
Coelacanths were believed to have gone extinct during the Late Cretaceous period. Today we know that’s not true, but until 1938 we hadn’t seen any or more importantly, we hand’t found any younger fossils. The last record we had of the coelacanth came from the Cretaceous period. You may be wondering how this is possible, I know I was when I started researching this episode. I found a great article from UC Berkley that helped me understand what happened to the missing evidence of coelacanths for the last 60 million years. 
Lineages are important when studying the fossil record of any living things. Lineages are the unbroken chains of ancestors and descendants. They tell us who is related to whom. A ghost lineage occurs when a line of descent leaves no trace in the fossil record. This is what has happened to our beloved coelacanth. Now back to our question, how is this possible? How come we can’t find fossil evidence of the coelacanth after the Cretaceous period.
Living coelacanths reside in deep ocean waters near volcanic islands. To create fossils, whatever dies is preserved by layers of sediment and then exposed million of years later. If you are a deep water resident your fossils have to rise above sea level and eventually become exposed in an area where humans can find it, whether through natural erosion or paleontological digging. Well, most fossils are more than 70 million years old, so we haven’t found younger coelacanth fossils yet because they’re still hidden in the depths of the ocean where our modern coelacanths live. 
Coelacanths are considered a Lazarus taxon. A Lazarus taxon is a group of living beings that reappear after a long period during which they were thought to be extinct. The name is based on the biblical story of Lazarus who was raised from the dead. There are typically two characteristics shared by Lazarus taxons. 1- They have a limited geographic range. 2-They live in an area where fossils rarely form. This certainly sounds like the coelacanth to me. 
That is all for this penultimate episode of the coelacanth. The fossil record of this majestic fish is my ninth favorite thing about this long-lived animal.
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for the final episode about the coelacanth.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Coelacanth: Limbs vs Fins

Summary: Are they limbs or are they fins? What are those things on the side of the coelacanth? Join Kiersten and a guest host to find out!
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean
 
Shoe Notes: 
“Coelacanth Fossil Sheds Light On Fin-to-limb Evolution.” Science Daily, https://www.sciencedaily.com
Anatomy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fish/anatomy.html
Music written and performed by Katherine Camp
Oxford Languages Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Casey teaches her students all about cladograms!
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues the coelacanth and their crazy interesting fins is the eighth thing I like about this deep sea fish.
Today I have a guest cohost joining me, my friend Casey. Thanks for joining me Casey.
 
Casey: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
 
Kiersten: Casey and I have known each other for a long time. We met as zookeepers 18 years ago and became friends very quickly. Today, Casey is a biology teacher and when she found out I was doing this podcast she was excited to help me.
 
Casey: Coelacanths are extremely interesting and their appendages, or limbs, are interesting in their history.
 
Kiersten: Great! Today we’re talking about limbs versus fins! I hope by now, listeners, you’ve all googled a picture of the coelacanth and have gotten a glimpse of their interesting fins.  In episode two, anatomy, I talked about the coelacanths special fins called lobed fins. They have six lobed fins.
 
Casey: I love their little limbs!
 
Kiersten: Me too! But I thought they were fins?
 
Casey: They do look like limbs.
 
Kiersten: I think we need to dive into this topic and learn a bit more.
 
Casey: I agree!
 
Kiersten: Let’s start with some definitions. The Oxford Languages Dictionary says a limb is "a leg or arm of a person or a four-legged animal, or a bird’s wing”. That completely leaves out the coelacanth, for sure!
 
Casey:  I agree! But the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition is “one of the projecting paired appendages of an animal body used especially for movement and grasping but sometimes modified into sensory or sexual organs.” I think that puts the coelacanth back in the limb arena!
 
Kiersten: Maybe…Let’s hear Oxford Languages Dictionary’s definition of fin: “a flattened appendage on various parts of the body of many aquatic vertebrates and some invertebrates, including fish and cetaceans, used for propelling, steering, and balancing.” That definitely sounds like the coelacanth.
 
Casey: I can’t argue with that! But Merriam-Webster’s definition of fin is “an external membranous process of an aquatic animal used in propelling or guiding the body.” I’m on the fence with this one. I wouldn’t say that coelacanths have membranous fins.
 
Kiersten: Hmmmmm….I think what we need to do is look at what these fins can do.
 
Casey: You mean limbs.
 
Kiersten: Let’s call them appendages until we get his settled. 
 
Casey: Deal!
 
Kiersten: The coelacanth has seven appendages overall. Four are paired, two behind the gills, the pectoral fins, one on each side; two mid body on the bottom of the fish the pelvic fins, one on each side. Then there is one anal fin just in front of the tail on the underside of the fish and then two dorsal fins. They have eight if you include the tail. I think it’s interesting in itself that they have eight appendages, that’s quite a lot for a fish.
 
Casey: Yeah, what are they using all those appendages for?
 
Kiersten: Well the four paired fins on each side of the body move like paddles propelling them forward through the water. These appendages are able to rotate 180 degrees so they can probably use them to back up as well as more forward. The really cool thing about these four extremities is that they work in conjunction with each other. The right pectoral fin moves together with the left pelvic fin. 
 
Casey: You mean like the way a horse walks?
 
Kiersten: Yes! It’s a lot like how a many land mammals move their ….. oh, I see where you going with this. You just want me to say they're limbs!
 
Casey: Yes! Yes, I do! 
 
Kiersten: Well, I think we might both get what we want from the next definition. Coelacanths are classified as a lobe-finned fish. This means that the flouncy part of the fins are attached to a stalk that projects out from their body. It actually looks like a paddle with a fin attached to the end.  
 
Casey: That sounds like a limb…..and a fin.
 
Kiersten: Yes, I agree. Maybe we can agree that we’re both right?
 
Casey: I can do that. Did you know that some lungfish, who are also a lobe-finned fish, actually use their fins to walk on land when they need too? If the vernal pond they are living in becomes too shallow, they can use their limbs to drag themselves across the land to another water source. Essentially they use their limbs to walk to another pond.
 
Kiersten: I guess it really is both a limb and a fin. Speaking of limbs, I just read a research paper, from way back in the early 2000’s, that stated a coelacanth fossil actually helped scientists understand the evolution from fins to limbs in tetrapods. Tell us little about that.
 
Casey: I can! What you’re talking about is called evolutionary classification which is a strategy that we tend to use now instead of taxonomy which only looks at physical attributes. Evolutionary classification is grouping organisms together based on their evolutionary history. So, we’re looking at lines of evolutionary descent not just physical characteristics. These lines are called cladograms and they look like trees. They branch off at each different change. So, the cladogram where it’s branching off to tetrapods, which is a four limbed vertebrate, is where their is a bit of a controversy involving the coelacanth.
We are tetrapods. We may walk on two legs but we have four limbs. The big debate is whether the kingfish or the coelacanth is the direct ancestor of tetrapods. Now remember we said lungfish walk on their limbs to get to the next vernal pond. That is where the debate is coming from. I’d like to say there is an answer to this debate but there are three different cladograms and only one of them has the coelacanth as the direct ancestor to the tetrapod.
 
Kiersten: Is it descendent or ancestor?
Casey: It’s ancestor. 
 
Kiersten: Okay. Because we’re all tetrapods, right?
 
Casey: Right, but we would be a descendant of a coelacanth. Now I’m not talking like you grandmother or anything.
 
Kiersten: (laughs)
 
Casey: I’m talking millions of years ago. So coelacanths or lungfish would be the ancestors of tetrapods.  One version has the coelacanth as the direct ancestor, while another version has the lungfish as the direct ancestor, and the last version has both of them at the same branching. So, no solution to this debate as of yet. They’ve narrowed it down to these three options. No mater how you look at it though the coelacanth is Number 1 or Number 2. 
 
Kiersten: So, he’s still winning. (Laughs)
 
Casey: (laughs) Yes! He’s still winning. He still in the trifecta. Either way it’s still in the positive.
  
Kiersten: That is interesting! That’s why I picked you for this podcast! I knew you’d understand that and be able to explain it better than me! Thanks for helping me talk about the coelacanth appendages today Casey.
 
Casey: You’re welcome. I had a lot of fun!
 
Kiersten: Me too! And I think we both agree that coelacanth appendages are both limbs and fins.
 
Casey: I agree!
 
Kiersten: Well that is it for this episode, listeners. I hope you enjoyed a little debate about coelacanth appendages because it’s my eighth favorite thing about them.
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another episode about the coelacanth.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.