Canebrake in the road

"Snake!" Both Jake and I voiced the single word simultaneously.

Ahead of us, nearing the edge of the pavement, was the unmistakable form that we had been hoping to see. There were no other vehicles in sight on the roadway. As we neared, we both said "canebrake." I stopped a couple of dozen feet before reaching the snake and Jake piled out of one door and I from the other. The snake lying quietly stretched out, merely kinked a bit as we neared and never rattled.

The canebrake rattlers, Crotalus horridus atricaudatus, of this region vary noticeably in ground color with most being tan or dead-leaf brown. A few, though, are a beautiful purple or pink and we were elated to see that this 30 incher was one of these latter.

Since there was still no traffic we took a few pictures, gently touched the rattler's tail with a slender stick, and watched for a few moments as the snake slowly crawled from the pavement and disappeared without disturbance into the roadside greenery.

A canebrake had been our goal for the evening but having found this beauty we decided to continue road-hunting for another half hour. In that 30 minute time frame we saw 3 additional snakes: a corn, a juvenile yellow-gray rat snake, and a Peninsula ribbon snake.

All in all it was a great evening, one that we both would remember favorably, and we were home before dark!

Always a welcome sight, the intense coloration of this example made it especially so. This was one of the prettier canebrake rattlers that we have seen in North Central Florida.

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity.