Palo Duro Canyon, south of Amarillo.
The pictures you see are of a spring time den. The snakes den there for the winter. Early in the spring they come out, like in these pictures, to sun for a few hours and then go back in the den. As the days warm they wander further and further from the den to find food. It's an impressive sight.
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that this is a hoax and this photo was not taken in Palo Duro Canyon. Bad new is, I'm guilty...I didn't do due diligence and research the email to see if it was true. Good news is...I didn't forward the email to 50 contacts so as to gather more email addresses for someones database.
9 comments:
I stopped by Outdoor World yesterday afternoon. The snakes in their display were more active than usual, but nothing like this.
Wouldn't want to be hiking through there...
Eeek! Runs screaming away.
That's not Palo Duro Canyon. Those are the wrong kind of rattlesnakes and PDC does not have that color of soil much less the creosote bushes that are in the photos. Look up photos of the canyon and you'll realize that this is just another case of misinformation being spread via the NET.
Those photos weren't taken at Palo Duro Canyon. The soil there is red (Permian) and the rattlesnakes are diamondbacks. Also, Palo Duro Canyon does not have the creosote bushes which are in those photos. So...the snakes, the flora, and the soil colors... are all wrong for Palo Duro Canyon. It's just another one of those net hoaxes that abound. Check out photos of the canyon. It was cut by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the RED River...thus the red color of the soil.
Well, wherever it is, it's still a lot of snakes on the plains...
All dem snakes out in dat wild west place - dat's jus' craaazy!
Fake Brian Fellow
I posted these same pics in my blog about a year ago and had someone claiming to be the park supt. say the same things "both" anons said. I did the same "mea culpa", then got angry because I realized the poster was probably just someone trying to do their own hoax.
I live in the Texas Panhandle and have visited the park at least a hundred times and nearly every time have seen a rattler (or two or three)except for the winter months.
True, the main channel of the "river" is red, but the gullies draining into the watercourse look much like the photos.
Click the Palo Duro Galleries to see some photos. (can't deep-link as it's prohibited by the website) I have some photos in my blog of PD Canyon that shows some sandy soil such as is in the photos.
Anon would have you believe he (yes, "he" because most "shes" aren't as full of BS) is a biologist, a botanist AND a geologist.
What sort of rattler do you reckon it is, anon? You conveniently left that out. Are they prairie or Mojave? Both can be found in this area...trust me, I know, have almost stepped on both. I've got a photo or two of a rattler in my blog and they look just like the ones shown in these photos.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife website features a photo of PD Canyon rattler. If you'll care to look, you'll see some terrain that looks similar to that which is in the photos.
I suppose the tree COULD be a creosote, but it looks to me to be a mesquite or even a dead live oak or perhaps a variety of juniper or some other small evergreen twisted by the ever-present wind.
Even if it IS a creosote, a quick Google search shows that the bush is native to Texas AND is found in PD Canyon. Funny how someone can tell what it is from a few fuzzy photos of stunted and dead branches.
I did some research on the photos after hastily posting them and found several other sites that claimed they were in New Mexico or Arizona or California; one said they were taken in Montana.
Man, those snakes sure get around, don't they?
I don't care where the photos were taken; they're still terrifying on a primal level. I hate rattlers, but hate anon BS artists even more.
actually this very well could be part of PDC. that canyon is over 200 miles long and if you've been in the state park part then no, those photos look nothing like PDC. but i went to school in that area and did extensive research throughout those 200 miles. i have seen such hibernaculas in PDC and the surrounding texas panhandle area. sandstone and sandy loamy soil is orange but caliche is that washed out white color. regardless of the photos origin it's impressive documentation of behavior of some pretty interesting animals.
The information here is great. I will invite my friends here.
Thanks
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