Sandra Williams, age 10, of Asheville, North Carolina, for her question:
How are baby rattlers nourished?
Mrs. Rattlesnake gives birth to a litter of live babies and her sprightly infants are ready to cope with life within the hour. They are born with built in complete rattlesnake education. Mama does not have to teach them a thing. Kindergarten training, class instruction and learning under guidance are not required courses.
Herpetologists classify more than 20 species of rattlesnake and all of them are native New Worlders. They range from southern Canada way south to Uruguay and each species favors a large or small territory that may be hot or cool, dry or tropical. All of them belong to the minority group of snakes that bear live babies. Nature's birthing events are always wondrous and the rattlesnake maternity procedure is no exception. Motherhood begins at the age of two and a half to three years, and thereafter Mrs. Rattier may bear 20 litters, one each year of her life.
Rattlers, like all other animal species, have their own notions of family life. When they are active, togetherness does not appeal to them and most of their lives are spent in solitary independence. However, nature decrees that they must pair off and get together when time comes to hand on life. Mr. Rattler comes courting in the spring. Mrs. Rattler carries her developing embryos through the summer and usually gives birth in early fall. As her time approaches, she is restless but when the birthing begins she is calm.
Each baby rattler is born neatly encased in a membrane that looks like a sheath of transparent polyethelene. The mother twists her snaky body to help him emerge and then usually rests a while before the next youngster makes his debut. There may be two to more than 30 babies in the litter and the maternity process may take several hours. But the mother takes no interest in her newborn. When the birthing is complete, she rests a while and then serenely departs to live her usual life of solitude. Each newborn rattler rests maybe an hour and then pokes himself free from his shiny wrappings.
His life begins at once and the sprightly infant is fully equipped to cope with it. He is an exact miniature copy of his parents and born with a full set of built¬ in instructions for coping with rattlesnake problems of every kind. At the age of ten minutes, he may catch a grub and enjoy his first snack. He knows how to sneak up on a victim and how to bite and stun his prey with his little poisonous fangs. In a very short time, the little hunter may catch and devour a small frog. The infant rattler finds his own live meaty nourishment for himself. Nature has given him coded instructions to feed and fend for himself from the hour of his birth.
Probing the secrets of any animal always leads a student to its links with other creatures, friends and foes. We are coaxed farther and farther a field to behold the intricate web of life within the vast and varied scheme of nature. Life is our planet's supreme triumph and nature cherishes it. The inborn life force is strong, determined to survive and hand itself on to new generations. It strives to overcome hardships and setbacks and to adjust itself to ceaseless changes. And every animal expresses the survival and reproductive forces of life according to its own particular instructions.