I'm not sure who coined the phrase "dumb animal". These magnificent creatures are anything but dull.

This year, in the last two months actually, Lol, I've had the surprise & pleasure of seeing Two (!) Northern pacific rattlesnakes.

One was in Harris Park down past Milton Freewater OR. The other was yesterday evening on highway 12 near Waterbrook winery.

The snake in Harris park was crossing a riverside trail heading uphill and looking very happy. It had its head and tail at a 45° above the ground as it perambulated Lol.

Yesterday snake was probably coiled or stretched out on the shoulder. I was walking from my river exit back to the bicycle and reached either for my marijuana or cell phone and this enormous (female?) 3' reared up to flee.

To see what it was I took a step into the grass and the old girl looked over her hump and hissed at me like a damn wildcat.


In fact it was almost exactly like a wild female cat fleeing angrily from a preferred place. I got no sense whatsoever of stupidity from this creature, and noted that she fled away from the street and did not like the tall grass.

There's a very interesting blog if you google rattlesnake intelligence, and it references a research group in San diego that tracks the behavior of these animals and observes their intelligence.

They have a working memory and learn from specific experience. They can manipulate the environment ie removing snags and sight breaks from an ambush point. They are social and congregate at preferred shedding locations.

They have elaborate courtship and are highly sexual with females able to devote nearly 100% of mating season to hunting prey, males doing all the work of locating the females.

The males have to avoid all human fortifications in search of females and females must find a discreet den in which to gestate. Apparently the fetuses are quite temperature dependent and the mother knows how to regulate this.

Not dumb animals @@