Crotalus adamanteus
The eastern diamondback rattlesnake is a species of pit viper in the family Viperidae. The species is endemic to the Southeastern United States. It is the largest rattlesnake species and one of the heaviest venomous snakes in the Americas. No subspecies are recognized.

Caudatejake · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- eastern diamondback rattlesnakePBDB
- Sits inside
- CrotalusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
16 occurrences of Crotalus adamanteus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
16 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
3 formations
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The named rock units Crotalus adamanteus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Crotalus adamanteus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Crotalus adamanteus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
628 taxa- Equus10 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus9 sites
- Terrapene carolina9 sites
- Dasypus bellus8 sites
- Mammut americanum8 sites
- Procyon lotor8 sites
- Aenocyon dirus7 sites
- Holmesina septentrionalis7 sites
- Lynx rufus7 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo7 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus7 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis7 sites
- Alligator mississippiensis6 sites
- Coluber constrictor6 sites
- Didelphis virginiana6 sites
- Gopherus polyphemus6 sites
- Neofiber alleni6 sites
- Oryzomys palustris6 sites
- Palaeolama mirifica6 sites
- Paramylodon harlani6 sites
- Scaphiopus (Scaphiopus) holbrooki6 sites
- Tremarctos floridanus6 sites
- Anolis carolinensis5 sites
- Colinus virginianus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Crotalus adamanteus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
12 references- Fossil snakes of North America4
- The fossil snakes of Florida2
- Collared peccary (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Tayassuidae, Pecari) from the late Pleistocene of Florida1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- Pleistocene amphibians and reptiles from the Leisey Shell Pit, Hillsborough County, Florida1
- A Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from Palm Beach County, Florida1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- The Pleistocene local fauna of the Natural Chimneys, Augusta County, Virginia1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna near Orange Lake, Florida1
- Amphibians and reptiles from the Pleistocene (Illinoian) of Williston, Florida1
- The Pleistocene herpetofauna of Saber-tooth Cave, Citrus County, Florida1
- Vertebrata mostly from Stratum No. 3, at Vero, Florida, together with descriptions of new species1
Each of the 16 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Crotalus adamanteus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Caudatejake
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Crotalus adamanteus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCrotalus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Palisot de Beauvois 1799