Grand Canyon Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus abyssus)

Created: June 27th, 2017 - 03:53 PM
Last Modified: June 28th, 2017 - 09:27 AM Entered by: Jeremy Westerman
Record 281802

Country: United States		State: Utah	County: Garfield County	Time: 2017-06-26 23:01:00
Qty: 1	Age: Sub-Adult	Sex: --	Method: Road cruising	Habitat: sandy cliff area slick rock sandstone
Body Temperature: -----		Air Temperature: 73.00F	Ground Temperature: -----	Humidity: -----
Sky Conditions: Clear		Moon Phase: -----	Elevation: 5933.00ft	Barometric Pressure: -----

Notes

after some discussion with several rattlesnake researchers Louis Porras, Brendan O'Connor, Rich Gassaway, Gordon Schuett, the concensus is that this snake is abyssus rather than concolor due to the location near Escalante (the DNA for snakes there during several studies came back as abyssus clade) and the extremely long tail is indicitive of Utah abyssus.

Vouchers

Comments

Posted by Jeremy Westerman on Jul 28, 2017 at 12:32 PM

there are no prairie rattlers on the west side of powell or in garfield county, and to be frank, it doesn't look like a prairie at all. The only consideration is between Grand Canyon rattlesnakes and Midget faded in this area of Utah.

Posted by Jeff Mintz on Jul 22, 2017 at 12:56 AM

i beg to differ i believe this to be a prairie rattler, the locale is too far north and east for Abyssus