Indigo vs. Rattler: Down(ed) and Out

This is the tale of the Jonah rattler. Or, as Georgia DNR's Matt Moore describes it, a story with "layers of unlikeliness."

As part of a survey for federally protected eastern indigo snakes last November, Moore, a wildlife technician with the agency, caught a relatively small but rather stout indigo crossing a field in southeast Georgia's Long County. He measured and tagged the roughly 4-foot-long snake, then put it in a cloth bag for weighing.

Nothing seemed out of order. Until he opened the bag. That's when, as Moore said, "things kinda got weird."

The bag now held three snakes: a slimmer indigo, a young adult rat snake and a juvenile eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake.

FILLED TO THE BRIM

The indigo, a species whose prey includes snakes, had regurgitated the others (and in doing so lost about a half-pound in weight).

"It was filled to the brim with snakes," Moore said.

Both of the regurgitated reptiles were dead. Or at least they appeared to be.

While surprised at the extra reptiles - Moore had heard of indigos upchucking partially digested snakes, although never a venomous one - he carefully moved the rat snake and the 14- to 16-inch-long diamondback to a table. Within minutes, he saw the rattler's tail twitch. Just a remnant muscle contraction, Moore thought.

He put the remains in a bag and finished processing the indigo. But when he went back an hour and a half later, the diamondback was crawling.

FAST FOOD

Indigos are voracious predators. They grow up to about 8 feet long, are immune to the venom of native snakes and eat "pretty much anything made out of protein." Moore explained that indigos kill other snakes by chewing their head, crushing the skull and then swallowing the animals whole.

This indigo just didn't finish the job. The skin on the rattler's head was only slightly torn. Moore thinks he caught the indigo just after it ate the rattlesnake. (The dead rat snake had been digested longer.)

Thankful that he wasn't bitten by the temporarily comatose rattler, Moore released the revived reptile at a gopher tortoise burrow, a common refuge for the species. Yet after crawling into the entrance, the rattlesnake came out and began to bask in grass nearby. Moore had never seen a diamondback shun a burrow.

Oh, and one last layer of unlikeliness: A bulge in the rattler's body showed it had recently eaten a big mouse.

"It managed to keep its meal down after being swallowed and regurgitated by the indigo," Moore said.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Moore and others were concerned that although the rattlesnake had survived being eaten, it might later succumb to the wounds suffered. But if not and the snake was seen again, the hope was it could be identified by its scarred head and unique dorsal pattern.

Fast forward to this spring when DNR learned that someone had photographed a live rattler that appeared to be the same animal.

Moore reviewed the images, taken about three weeks after he had released the snake and in the same area. He said they showed an eastern diamondback with the signature wound on its head and a dorsal diamond pattern that matched "exactly" his photos of the regurgitated rattler.

Weeks after getting a second chance, the Jonah rattlesnake was still alive and crawling.

Top: (From left, clockwise) The indigo and its prey, the indigo up close and the rattlesnake in recovery (Matt Moore/DNR)

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