Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Rattlesnakes Under Glass
By Carol Mell, 6-24-07
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| Visitors can go snoot to snoot with rattlesnakes kept behind glass by Bob Myers at the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque, NM | |
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What smells with its tongue, has an endless supply of fangs and announces someone’s at the door with a rattle rather than a bell?
If you guessed a rattlesnake you’d be right but I’ll bet there’s a lot about these slithering, but not slimy, creatures you don’t know. Visiting the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque helped me separate fact from fiction.
Owner Bob Myers claims he has the largest collection of different species of rattlesnakes in the world.
“I used to be a biology teacher,” he said. “I tell people I wanted to get into something safer so I opened a rattlesnake museum.”
Will you see snakes on planes, trains or automobiles at the museum? Nope. How about snakes jumping through flaming hoops, dancing in pink skirts or playing in a jug band? Nope, nope and nope.
Stuffed, two-headed snakes? Nope.
Snakes don’t give a rattle for tricks and don’t have to. Nose to nose with a venomous viper is enough to make our warm blood run cold. Myer’s beauties appeared to nap, coiled up with their rattles. I say, “appeared,” because their eyes were open like the dragon Smaug guarding his treasure. Look closely and you’ll see their pupils are creepy vertical slits.
If you thought rattlesnakes add one rattle per year, live only at low altitudes, always wear diamond backs and administer fatal bites you’d also be wrong. Nope, nope, nope and nope.
“Every rattle is a shed,” said Myers. “A snake can have four to six sheds (of their skin) in its first year then several each year after.”
My Dad in his mountain cabin always said there were no rattlers at high altitudes. I don’t hear much about them in the Sangre de Cristos either. Myers said some varieties only live at higher altitudes.
“The Prairie rattlesnake lives near Taos. I got a specimen from over 10,000 feet,” said Myers.
Two Diamondbacks are in residence at the museum, one has stripes instead of diamonds.
Rattlesnake bites won’t kill you but will make you regret the encounter.
“The death rate for rattlesnake bites is about one in 1,000,” said Myers. “You don’t need cutting, sucking, tourniquets or ice. Just get to the hospital. Only in rare cases will you need anti-venom. Snakes normally will only bite if you step or sit on them. Those are called legitimate bites. Most bites are illegitimate brought on by stopping and messing with the snake.”
Think you’ll always know when a rattler is near? Nope. According to the “Nature” episode running in the museum, an old man killed all the rattlers he heard in his yard, leaving the rattlers that tended not to shake their booty to reproduce, filling his yard with quiet snakes.
The good news is that snakes eat rodents, a common cause of Hantavirus and Bubonic Plague, diseases more likely to kill you than snakebite.
Most of Myer’s snakes were born in captivity and can adapt to life in a museum. If it seems cruel for snakes to be stuck in terrariums, Myers said they would prefer even smaller spaces but their habitats are as natural as possible. You have to scrutinize their glass houses to find them; their camouflage is so effective.
Myers prefers not to touch his snakes.
“The only legitimate reason to handle rattlesnakes is to milk the venom. If we have to lift the snake we use a hook made for that purpose.”
The best way to deal with a snake is to ignore it and keep on moving. The only time Myers was ever bitten was when he had the snakes outdoors for a National Geographic photo shoot.
“I let my guard down and I guess the snakes were upset. I learned my lesson, not to do what National Geographic tells me.”
The museum is stuffed with all things snake-related. This includes sports uniforms, artwork, coins, snakes in music and games, a rattlesnake slot machine and even the head from a “Conan the Barbarian” movie. He also has a huge cartoon collection including “Far Side” snakes wearing aprons and spectacles as well as an Albuquerque Journal cartoon by John Trever showing a diamondback swallowing a New York Yankee baseball in honor of the D-backs’ World Series win in 2001.
The only way to show all of Myer’s collections is in rotating exhibits. He had just removed his snake charmer exhibit and had put up a Native American group representing, what else, the snake dance. Also safely behind glass, visitors could look over a collection of beers, liquors and beverages with snake themes. I could have used that sugar-free Cascabel energy drink.
One little schoolgirl once asked Myers if he ever fed his snakes little bunnies.
“No, never,” he reassured her. “I never feed them bunnies. I occasionally feed them a rabbit, but never a bunny.”
The little girl was satisfied with that answer, Myers reported.
Still think your snake nightmares are only about sex? Where do we get this stuff anyway?
Readers can learn more about the American International Rattlesnake Museum at www.rattlesnakes.com.
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