Calif. rattlesnake may be a new subspecies
Posted on December 1st, 2009
Greenwire: DNA studies on four female and one male rattlesnake are being conducted to determine if the snakes, found 22 miles from the Southern California shore on Santa Catalina Island, are a different subspecies than the Southern Pacific rattlesnake indigenous to southern California.
Naturalists have long suspected that the stouter snakes, which require more provocation to coil up and strike, could be a different subspecies.
“The scale patterns on their heads are different, possibly indicating that they arrived thousands of years ago,” said Carlos de la Rosa, chief conservation and education officer for the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy, which manages most of the 76-square-mile island as wilderness.
The DNA tests are being performed at Loma Linda University’s Department of Earth and Biological Sciences (Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28). – DFM