You don’t always get to choose the circumstances of the first time you get to see an animal, and this one was certainly such a case. This sliver of scale was all I ever saw of my first Red Diamond Rattlesnake, Crotalus ruber. Fortunately, we saw another 23 that day, and a spattering of Southern Pacific Rattlesnakes (and a lot of other stuff, too), so I’m quite happy with having left this one exactly as is, as we did.
Tags: Crotalus, red diamond rattlesnake, ruber
