Fossil Rattlesnakes of the Genus Crotalus from Northern MassachusettsAuthor(s): Richard van Frank and Max K. HechtSource: Copeia, Vol. 1954, No. 2 (May 5, 1954), pp. 158-159Published by: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1440345 .

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158 COPEIA, 1954, NO. 2

TABLE I

WEIGHTS AND MEASUREMENTS OF SEVEN FEMALES OF Caretta

c. caretta COLLECTED OFF CAPE LOOKOUT, NORTH

CAROLINA, MARCH 20, 1953

Measurements in inches, weight in pounds

Maximum Total Carapace Plastron, head

Weight length length width Length Width

94 36.0 26.5 22.5 20.0 5.0 105 36.5 26.0 22.0 20.0 5.5 109 39.0 26.5 22.0 20.5 6.0 123 39.5 28.5 22.0 21.5 6.5 125 38.5 28.0 23.0 22.0 6.5 140 38.0 28.5 23.5 21.5 6.0 155 41.0 29.5 25.5 23.0 6.0

length (tip of beak to tip of tail), 70 inches; length of carapace, 41 inches; width of carapace, 29.5

inches; length of plastron, 32.5 inches; greatest width of head, 8.5 inches; length of tail extending beyond posterior margin of carapace, 17 inches.

On March 20, 1953 seven female loggerheads were captured in the same area as the large male described above. Measurements were taken in the same manner described above (Table I). In none of the females did the tail extend beyond the pos- terior margin of the carapace.

Acknowledgment is hereby made for the cheerful assistance of Mr. Jim Beebe, Jr., of Islip, Long Island, in the weighing of the turtles.-WILLiAm E. FAHY, Institute of Fisheries Research, University of North Carolina, Morehead City, North Carolina.

THE NARROW-MOUTHED TOADS MICRO- HYLA OLIVACEA AND M. CAROLINENSIS IN NORTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA.-A. P. Blair reported (1950, COPEIA (2): 152, and 1952, COPEIA (2): 114), on good evidence, that Micro- hyla olivacea and Microhyla carolinensis behave as distinct species in northeastern Oklahoma. On June 6, 1952, after a thunder shower, I observed both of the above species calling in the same pond along a roadside 15 miles south of Tahlequah, Cherokee County, Oklahoma. Samples of both

species were collected. Four clasping pairs of M. carolinensis were observed, and many eggs were floating on the water in loose clusters of from 15 to 20. No clasping pairs of M. olivacea were found.

The calls of these two species were so different that the author knew which one to expect to find while stalking them. There were approximately 20 males of carolinensis calling in this quarter-acre pond and about half that number of olivacea. Per- haps the olivacea had passed their breeding peak for the spring.

Also calling at the same time were a few in- dividuals of Pseudacris niqrita and Hyla versicolor.

It may be that AM. carolinensis and M. olivacea hybridize or intergrade in some localities, but

certainly they act as distinct species in this part of northeastern Oklahoma.-HAGUE L. LINDSAY, JR., Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

FOSSIL RATTLESNAKES OF THE GENUS CROTALUS FROM NORTHERN MASSA- CHUSETTS.-Several years ago Mr. Robert Sanders, an undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut, brought to our attention several hundred fossil crotalid vertebrae and ribs col- lected by him and his brother. In early spring, 1951, Mr. Sanders, the authors, and several others, revisited the locality. They collected many more vertebrae and ribs as well as numerous other skeletal elements, and fossil remains of mammals and snails. The fossils were found in a public park east of Greenfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts, beyond the end of Highland Avenue. They lay in several basal fissures and in talus, beneath a basaltic

palisade. The deposit probably represents the deep- est end of a former hibernation den, the rest of which has been lost through erosion of the cliff.

Although the exact age of the deposit has not been

determined, the associated remains indicate a late Pleistocene or sub-Recent age. The fossils were found disarticulated and thoroughly mixed

up, and show no indication of ever having been laid in strata. They are not evidently mineralized, although a lime drip has encrusted and conglomer- ated a few.

The rattlesnake remains (Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Dept. Geol. and Paleont. No. 7520) consist of the following (including both complete and in-

complete bones): premaxillae, maxillae with and without fangs, isolated fangs, palatines, ectoptery- goids, pterygoids, basicrania, prefrontals, frontals, parietals, postfrontal spines, quadrates, squamosals, dentaries, proximal halves of the lower jaw (articu- lar, angular, and surangular), at least a thousand vertebrae from all regions of the body (except the atlas and axis), styles (shakers), and a few hundred ribs. These are apparently the remains of fifteen to

twenty fairly large specimens of Crotalus, indistin-

guishable as far as we can determine from C. hor- ridus. This opinion was corroborated by Mr. B. Brattstrom, to whom (through Dr. L. M. Klauber) we had sent a sample of the collection.

In the fossils (seemingly consistently) the pos- terior angle between the hypapophysis and the horizontal axis is greater than in the Recent C. horridus that we have seen, but the same large inclination is present in available specimens of C. adamanteus. Brattstrom, however, finds that some C. horridus have the hypapophyses angled as

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REVIEWS AND COMMENTS

REVIEWS AND COMMENTS

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. Produced by Peter Paul Kellogg and Arthur A. Allen for the Albert R. Brand Bird Song Foundation, 1953. Cornell

University Records. Twelve-inch Vinylite LP, 33Y3 RPM. $6.75. Professors Kellogg and Allen are to be congratulated upon the appearance of this new edition of "Voices of the Night." The

twenty-six frogs and toads included in the earlier

(1948) album are heard in this single record with the addition of the following eight forms: Hyla femoralis, Hyla septentrionalis, Microhyla carolinen-

sis, Eleutherodactylus ricordi, Bufo americanus

copei, Bufo cognatus, Rana capito and Rano grylio. This is not simply the old album with additions,

however, since several of the species have been re- corded anew and there has been some rearrange- ment of the order. In general, closely related forms are heard consecutively. The place and time of each

recording is given. This record does three things. It provides an in-

troduction to one aspect of the out-of-doors for naturalists in general; it furnishes an additional tool for the teaching of herpetology; and it makes available in permanent form some specific and sub-

specific characters of frogs and toads that cannot be embodied in a bottle of alcohol. The recordings are excellent both in the reproduction of single voices and in that the calls are heard against a back-

159

in the fossils. We agree with him that this character is probably not of taxonomic importance, but is one of individual variation.

Klauber and Brattstrom have estimated that a

fang 9.0 mm. long (measured from the proximal aperture of the lumen to the tip) represents an individual with a body length of about 960 mm.

Longer fangs are present in the collection, and when

compared with Klauber's (1935, Occas. Papers San Diego Natural History Society: 46) graph give an estimated body length of 1,100 mm. The length of the individuals of our sample probably ranged from 900 to 1,300 mm. There seem to be no really young rattlesnakes in this collection. This may be due to the smaller individuals not being well ossified, and therefore not preserved; or to their remaining in other portions of the den. Gloyd (1940, Chicago Academy of Science, special number: 172, 187) recorded the maximum length of C. h. horridus as 1,297 mm., and of C. h. atricaudatus as 1,665 mm. Thus the largest individuals in our sample are about the maximum for C. h. horridus, and are well within the range of C. h. atricaudatus.

The snake remains are represented by an abun- dance of some parts, and a scarcity of others. There is a complete absence of bones from the occipital region, and no atlas or axis vertebrae. The relative

rarity of the premaxilla and the quadrate may be due to their slight structure. In recent Crotalus the thoracic vertebrae can be divided into two

intergrading groups, the anterior and posterior thoracics. The anterior group is characterized by the greater height of the neural spine, and the

relative shortness of the hypapophysis. Both groups are composed of about equal numbers of vertebrae. In the fossil remains over three-quarters of all the vertebrae can be classified as posterior thoracics, the remainder being cervicals, anterior thoracics, and caudals.

Associated with the rattlesnake remains were scattered elements of Procyon lotor, Pitimys pine- torum, Blarina brevicauda, Sorex sp., Peromyscus sp., Synaptomys cooperi, and Tamias striatus. All the above mammals are still found in the region of the deposit. The above identifications were made

by Dr. R. Wetzel of the University of Connecti- cut and Dr. K. F. Koopman of Queens College.

Also present are numerous pulmonate snail

shells, distributed throughout the deposit exactly as the other fossils. Dr. Horace G. Richards of the

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia has

kindly identified the shells as follows: Triodopsis albolabris (Say), T. tridentata (Say), and Anguispira alternata (Say). All three species are still living in the New England region.

In conclusion, we feel that the rattlesnake is

probably a Crotalus horridus. The apparent dis-

crepancies noted above, however, cannot be prop- erly evaluated because of a lack of comparative material of the postcranial skeleton.-RICHARD VAN FRANK, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, AND MAx K. HECHT, Department of Geology and Pale-

ontology, American Museum of Natural History New York City, New York.

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