Crotalus mitchellii, the speckled rattlesnake

Rain-harvesting by the Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake (crotalus Mitchellii Pyrrhus)

Acquiring water is a challenge for desert animals, and organisms inhabiting arid regions have evolved morphological, physiological, and behavioral traits to maintain an appropriate water balance. On four occasions, I observed rain-harvesting or observed behaviors suggestive of rain harvesting in a population of speckled rattlesnakes (Crotalus mitchellii) in the Mojave Desert of southwestern Nor...

Vagabond males and sedentary females: spatial ecology and mating system of the speckled rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii)

We used radiotelemetric data and behavioural observations to characterize seasonal (mating versus post-mating seasons) and sexual variation in movement patterns, as well as to examine some of the ecological factors contributing to the evolution of the mating system in a venomous predator from the Mojave Desert of North America, the speckled rattlesnake, Crotalus mitchellii. Mating occurs in spr...

Body Size Evolution in Insular Speckled Rattlesnakes (Viperidae: Crotalus mitchellii)

BACKGROUND Speckled rattlesnakes (Crotalus mitchellii) inhabit multiple islands off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Two of the 14 known insular populations have been recognized as subspecies based primarily on body size divergence from putative mainland ancestral populations; however, a survey of body size variation from other islands occupied by these snakes has not been previously repor...

A two-level problem: habitat selection in relation to prey abundance in an ambush predator, the speckled rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii)

Understanding how food distribution influences habitat choice is a central goal of behavioural ecology. Because animals select habitats at different scales, and because the selection criteria used may be scale-dependent, studies examining the significance of food in relation to habitat selection should ideally incorporate more than one spatial scale. We relied on spatial ecology data and prey a...

Geographic Diet Variation of Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus)