my first wdb

[MikeF]

i went field herpin for the first time this weekend. i just did some early night cruisin with my dad. it was kind of a fishing trip. k anyways...
there was a ton of roadkill rattlers (i saw a mojave and a couplewdbs up close) and rabbits and other rodents. out of all that i only saw 2 live snakes. both wdb's. they were both young and had nice clean patterns imo. but maybe all the youngsters do, i dunno. well heres the pics.
http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/v46/the-mikester/Field%20Herpin/WBD-atrox2.jpg
http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/v46/the-mikester/Field%20Herpin/WDB-atrox.jpg

one roadkill pic...this is a mojave right?:
http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/v46/the-mikester/Field%20Herpin/roadkill-scutulatus.jpg

lemme know if i I did them wrong.:)
-Mike

[Rich G.]

and so is the second snake pictured (the one coiled) :-)

[MikeF]

ok so the coiled is mojave and the other is wdb... what tells you that? (for future reference so i can ID them correctly myself..help me out :) ).

[Cmpyrrhus]

One simple way to tell is the scales between the eyes. Mojaves differ from the diamondback in having enlarged scales between the supraoculars (eye scales). This takes one to be rather close to see though, not truly recommended in my book. :D The supraocular scales are more pronounced white in mojaves as I can tell as well. Also, you may notice that the black tail rings are usually narrower than the wider white spaces.

It took me many rattlers for me to start getting to see the differences myself. I always got the two confused rather often, as I am sure most everyone has. Usually a good field guide will also show the scalations between the two to correctly identify the species. Getting familiar with pictures and wild sightings just helps out more in the end also. I get thrown off by (or pictures of) most intergrades between the two.

Maybe Rich or someone else may possibly have some pictures to better explain some of the differences between them all????

[MikeF]

k, after reading your reply and doing a little more research this is what ive come up with...
i read that the mojaves have narrower heads relative to the body, their diamonds are outlined with much lighter scales, and the rings on the tail dont usually connect like they do on wdbs. also from looking at other pics i noticed that all the mojave were very light in color (like the roadkill one).
what i know about the WDBs is that the eye stripe comes to the corner of the mouth, their black tail stripes are about the same as the white, and the black usually goes all the way around the tail.
based on all this, remember im just a beginner to all this, what do you think the odds are that this could be a hybrid(still talkin bout the coiled one)? does anybody else think it could be a hybrid or am i just being dumb? lol. maybe im being thrown off just because of the dark color...could it be an age or locality thing?
thanks
Mike

[Rich G.]

one of each that would show the difference but for some reason my new computer won't show the pics on the atrox disk, so that is no help. This question comes up several times a year on teh forum. Besides the characteristics that Beau mentioned what it really boils down to is that after seeing enough of both you just know which is which just like a horse person can tell a Morgan from a Quarter or how one can immediatly distinguish a Ford truck from a Chevy truck. Once you get to know them, mojaves and diamondbacks really don't look that much alike. I can see where this case caused confusion though. Although the pattern in the lower snake is without a doubt Mojave the coloration is not a very common one for the species in Az. (that particular gray/brown is more common in places in California)and I can see where it could be confused for a diamondback. The best way to learn the difference is to just find as many pics as you can of both species on the net and in books. It won't be long before you get the hang of which is which.

[Rich G.]

here is a shot of a more typical Mojave. Pay particular attention to the face. The pattern is also the same although the overall color is different. Anybody have a face on shot of a WDB for comparison?

[JJFeldner]

species determinant when comparing Mojaves and WDBs. I have seen Mojaves ranging in color from the very green in the western Mojave to pink in some populations. Certain lava flow individuals (i.e., Pisgah) are so dark as to be confused with cerbs. Also in the western Mojave, I have found Mojaves which have hybridized with helleri and some carry a very dark coloration (west of the town of Mojave, east of Cal City) typical of helleri while showing other characters of Mojaves. The gray-brown color mentioned by Rich is quite common around South Mtn and the Estrellas, although much more common in E CA.

[SWHerper]

Will this work as a comparison???
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=8324732
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=8324732

[MikeF]

k thanks everybody. i guess ill just learn the subtle differences with time. sorry that this is kind of a repeat of similar posts.
thanks
Mike

[Rich G.]

those are some good comparisons. Mike, no problem on the repeating subject. It is a very common question posed not only by herpers but by the public in general. Last year Bill suggested we get a good series of photos together so we can make a link to which we can refer people, but it was rather late in the year to get started. Besides general pics with lots of variations, we need side by side comparisons of heads(Top view), heads (side view) tails, patterns etc. All need to be good quality photos showing scalation in good detail.

[JJFeldner]

but I don't see any differences between the two pics posted. Matter of fact, I think they are of the same snake. Note the tiny piece of green leaf in the foreground.

[Rich G.]

I couldn't get my WDB pics to work so SWH posted those face shots to compare with the previous Mojave pics.

[MikeF]

well maybe if i go out again ill try to get some better angles of the heads of mojaves and wbd's, if someone doesnt do it first. well this is assuming i remember to do it. lol
btw, the pic name was wbd-atrox. so now that i know its not an atrox, i changed it to C.scutulatus. heres a link just in case someone ever wants to see that pic again. (cant edit a post so long after the posting)
http://img15.photobucket.com/albums/v46/the-mikester/Field%20Herpin/C.scutulatus.jpg