Field Herper.com

Field notes and photography by Bryan D. Hughes
Feb
14th
2011

Black Tailed Rattlesnake from the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico

I spent 3 weeks in Eddy County in 2010, as I’ve mentioned about a million times by this point, a good part of which were looking for this guy. It’s a Black Tailed Rattlesnake, Crotalus molossus molossus, and oh man … these guys are a lot harder to find out there than they are back home in Arizona (at least for me that is).

This is the same snake as I featured recently, sitting in a crack in a rock. We saw him there, and returned later to see him sitting out, and got some more photos. These are probably my favorites from the trip, and I must again say that this is my favorite species 🙂

Northern Black Tailed Rattlesnake

I can’t believe how awesome this snake is; blacktails make me pretty happy to be around. The latter half, as you can see, is more or less patternless, while the front half has a simplified pattern reduced to single yellow chevrons fully encased in that rich brown. It’s very different than what I’m used to here in Arizona, and I hope to visit this individual again next time I’m out that way.

I love this thing.

4 Responses to “Black Tailed Rattlesnake from the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico”

  1. Michael says:

    What an awesome snake, and I love the color in the background too. How unusual is it for a molossus to have those patterns? I’ve never seen anything quite like it…

  2. Bryan says:

    As far as I can tell it is … this is the one and only molossus I’ve seen from that far East … probably fairly typical.

  3. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bryan D. Hughes, Cynthia White. Cynthia White said: RT @zigbot: Black tailed rattlesnake I found in New Mexico http://t.co/dRXXCeh […]

  4. Jill says:

    sweet shot with those claret cups in the background! This guy’s a looker.

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