Description
A small species, with adult specimens measuring between 43 cm and 76 cm (17 to 30 in) in length. According to Campbell and Lamar (2004), most adults are 50–80 cm (19.8 to 32 in) in length. The females are larger than the males, which is unusual for this group of snakes.
Midbody there are usually 21 rows of keeled dorsal scales. In males there are 141 or fewer ventral scales; in females 144 or fewer. Sometimes referred to as the horned rattlesnake because of the raised supraocular scales above its eyes. This adaptation may help shade the eyes or prevent sand drifting over them as the snake lies almost buried in it.
The color pattern consists of a ground color that may be cream, buff, yellowish brown, pink or ash gray, overlaid with 28-47 dorsal blotches that are subrhombic or subelliptical. In the nominate subspecies, the belly is white and the proximal lobe of the rattle is brown in adults. Klauber and Neill describe the ability of this species to display different coloration depending on the temperature—a process known as metachrosis.
Read more about this topic: Crotalus Cerastes
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)