Different brands here. Yours is a timber rattlesnake, mine is a Western Diamond back rattlesnake. That's all I've ever seen here in my locale, though presumably the occasional Eastern Dimondback shows up, along with what we call 'prairie rattlesnakes' (Missauga, I think) and rock rattlesnakes. I've seen those, but not here. They are more common north and west of me. The little 'rock rattlers' look very different than the one in my photos and don't get very large. The effect of a bite is about the same, I think. Saw a little yellow rattlesnake in Costa Rica. Typical rattlesnake conformation, but the color of a ripe banana. There's quite a variety of rattlesnakes. A 3 ft copperhead would be one for the record books!

Donald

--- In i*@yahoogroups.com, Linda Mann <lmann@...> wrote:
>
> That's what I'd always thought they looked like.
>
> Here's a link to a photo that looks like the one I encountered near the
> Iris cristata/verna clump at Frozen Head Sat. According to the ranger,
> this is the color phase most abundant there. Gorgeous gold and tan
> thing. Silly me, I thought it was another color phase of copperhead &
> poked at it with my hiking stick to get it to move where I could see it
> better. Its body shape was also very different from yours - about 3 ft
> long, looked like it was nearly 4 inches across at its widest point.
>
> http://www.westol.com/~towhee/images/timber-rattlesnake-yellow-1mr.jpg
>
> Sure am glad he doesn't live in my garden!
>
> Linda Mann east TN USA zone 7
>