Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 12 · column 1 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Pit vipers! The words alone elicit fear and loathing from most of us. Although snakes are not everyone’s favorite group of animals, most of us take a “live and let li”e” attitude with them. Except the venomous ones.
By anyone’s definition, though, venomous snakes are fascinating. And perhaps armed with more knowledge about them, one might even find them worthy of respect and admiration.
There are two venomous snakes in Rappahannock County, the copperhead and the timber rattlesnake. Both are pit vipers, snakes that have a small membrane-lined hole between the eye and nostril that aids in the detection of warm-blooded animal prey at night. Pit vipers also have eye pupils as vertical slits, thick triangular heads, keeled body scales and the ability to iiyect hemotoxic venom from hollow fangs that are rotated into position prior to a strike. The rattlesnake members of this group produce a scaly rattle on the tip of the tail.
The copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix L.) is a pinkishbrown, thick-bodied snake with obvious reddish-brown, saddleshaped dorsal bands. It is common throughout Virginia, especially in oak-hickory forest with rock crevices and slides.
The timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus L.) is a large snake with transverse dorsal bands on a background color that is either yellow-gray (lightphase morph) or dark brown to black (dark-phase). In Virginia the timber rattler is found only in the mountainous western counties in rocky woodlands.
90.6%