A guy told me you can find rattlesnakes with a metal detector as the rattles have small pieces of metal in them. I find this hard to believe as I have killed rattletsnakes and removed their rattles. I have never seen anything metallic in the rattles.
Any herpetologists out there who can acknowledge or disavow this?
2007-03-19 14:04:41 · 6 answers · asked by expatmt 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
Not true. The beads of the rattle are modified scales. If there was metal in them, rattlesnakes would be covered with partially metallic scales, which is impossible.
2007-03-19 14:11:18 · answer #1 · answered by greymatter 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Rattlesnakes do rattle before they strike/bite. But they do not attack, they only bite and rattle their tail for defense. The tail rattling is to warn you and let you know not to get too close or else it will give a painful bite. They don't like it when an animal or person is near them so they rattle their tail to let you know they are there and they don't want you near them. They bite you when you are too close, or step on them. That's when they inject the venom. Now most people say the first bite is the warning bite and does not inject venom into you. That is not true. Once you have been bitten you should go to a hospital immediately. They are the number one venomous snake to avoid because of that rattle on their tail.
2016-03-29 06:45:50 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
nope. HOWEVER scorpion stingers have large amounts of metal in them...seriously. This was mentioned on a discovery channel show about arachnids. They concentrate a lot of the iron and some other metlas i forgot which ones in thier stingers so they have metalic stingers.
2007-03-19 17:05:14 · answer #3 · answered by shadowhunter_1599 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Completely untrue, if a metallic substance was to be found in a snake's tail that mean that something is seriously wrong with the specimen.
2007-03-19 14:07:59 · answer #4 · answered by Jonas 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not true..and why on earth are you going around and killing rattlesnakes!?
2007-03-19 15:06:29 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No no and no
2007-03-19 14:10:37 · answer #6 · answered by canadaguy 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋