Crotalus viridis Totally Explained

Everything about Crotalus Viridis totally explained

ť Common names: prairie rattlesnake, western rattlesnake, plains rattlesnake, more.

Crotalus viridis is a venomous pitviper species native to the western United States, southwestern Canada, and northern Mexico. Two subspecies are recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here.

Common names

Prairie rattlesnake,
The type locality is described as "the Upper Missouri" (Valley, USA). An emendation was proposed by Smith and Taylor (1950) to "Gross, Boyd County, Nebraska." Species are listed as such due to their wide distribution, presumed large population, or because it's unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category. The population trend is stable. Year assessed: 2006.

Subspecies

Subspecies
C. v. nuntius	Klauber, 1935	Hopi rattlesnake	The United States from northeastern and north-central Arizona, from the New Mexican line to Cateract Creek, including the Little Colorado River basin, the southern section of the Apache Indian Reservation, the Hopi Reservation, and the Coconino Plateau from the southern rim of the Grand Canyon to U.S. Highway 66 in the south.
C. v. viridis	(Rafinesque, 1818)	Prairie rattlesnake	North American Great Plains from the Rocky Mountains to long. 96° W. and from southern Canada to extreme northern Mexico, including southwestern Saskatchewan, southeastern Alberta, Idaho in the Lemhi Valley, Montana east of the higher Rockies, southwestern North Dakota, west, central and extreme southeastern South Dakota, western Iowa, central and western Nebraska, Wyoming except for the Rockies, Colorado, central and western Kansas, Oklahoma, extreme southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, New Mexico, western and southwestern Texas, northeastern Sonora, northern Chihuahua, northern Coahuila.

Taxonomy

The taxonomic history of this species is convoluted. Previously, seven other C. viridis subspecies were also recognized, including abyssus, caliginis, cerberus, concolor, helleri, lutosus and oreganus. However, in 2001 Ashton and de Queiroz published a paper describing their analysis of the variation of mitochondrial DNA across the range of this species. Their results agreed broadly with those obtained by Pook et al. (2000). Two main clades were identified, east and west of the Rocky Mountains, which they argued were actually two different species: on the one hand C. viridis, including the conventional subspecies viridis and nuntius, and on the other C. oreganus, including all the other traditional subspecies of C. viridis. The authors retained the names of the traditional subspecies, but emphasized the need for more work to be done on the systematics of C. oreganus.Further Information

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