Rattlesnake or just a mistake?:[Final Edition]
Murray Hogben, Whig-Standard Staff Writer.  Kingston Whig - Standard Kingston, Ont.:Sep 17, 1996.  p. 10 

 

People:

Parent, Chris,  Hodgson, June

Author(s):

Murray Hogben, Whig-Standard Staff Writer

Article types:

News

Section:

Community

Publication title:

Kingston Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.: Sep 17, 1996.  pg. 10

Source Type:

Newspaper

ISSN/ISBN:

11974397

ProQuest document ID:

297214951

Text Word Count

380

Article URL:

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=309&VInst=PROD&VName=PQD&VType=PQD&Fmt=3&did=000000297214951&clientId=17280

 

Abstract (Article Summary)

Ontario's only rattlesnake, massasaugas frequent the Bruce Peninsula and eastern Georgian Bay and the islands and the Wainfleet Bog on Lake Erie at Port Colborne, as well as part of Windsor, he said, but not eastern Ontario. The snake is venomous but does not have a fatal bite.

[Chris Parent] said there are always possibilities that there could be an isolated massasauga here but June Hodgson, a snake fancier who nearly stepped on one in her bare feet in her Pittsburgh Township garage, said yesterday that "there's absolutely nothing that looks at all like that."

Full Text (380   words)

(Copyright The Kingston Whig-Standard 1996)

Was that a poisonous massasauga rattlesnake reported earlier this month in Pittsburgh Township or just a sneaky lookalike?

"I'm extremely doubtful that you have an eastern massasauga rattler in Pittsburgh Township," says Chris Parent, who is conducting a study of massasaugas where he works in Killbear Provincial Park near Parry Sound.

Ontario's only rattlesnake, massasaugas frequent the Bruce Peninsula and eastern Georgian Bay and the islands and the Wainfleet Bog on Lake Erie at Port Colborne, as well as part of Windsor, he said, but not eastern Ontario. The snake is venomous but does not have a fatal bite.

They are grey or brownish, rarely black, with a pattern of large brown blotches down the middle of the back, and three rows of smaller blotches along the sides, with a rattle at the end.

Parent said a 1980s study was made to identify where the different populations of massasaugas existed to see whether they were an endangered species, which they are not.

However, their numbers have been shrinking over the decades from when they used to be all over southern Ontario.

"As far as I know, massasaugas have never been recorded that far east in Ontario," Parent said.

Even knowledgeable people can make mistakes about them, he said.

There are a number of "very good rattlesnake mimics," he said. These include milk snakes, which have somewhat similar blotching and will vibrate their tails, which makes a noise if they rustle leaves or sticks. "It's very convincing," he added.

Parent said there are always possibilities that there could be an isolated massasauga here but June Hodgson, a snake fancier who nearly stepped on one in her bare feet in her Pittsburgh Township garage, said yesterday that "there's absolutely nothing that looks at all like that."

Hodgson, who has lots of snake books with photographs, said it was certainly not a milk snake or a water snake.

"I'm reasonably sure [it was a massasauga] but I'm not 100 per cent sure," said Queen's University biologist Stephen Lougheed, who prodded the large snake out neighbor Hodgson's garage door.

Lougheed said he knows eastern massasaugas are unlikely to be found here. Late at night, when he was about to go to bed, wasn't the time to pick it up and examine it, he said.