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A crotalus on display. A crotalus (Spanish: matraca), [1] [2] also known as a crotalum or clapper, is a wooden liturgical rattle or clapper that replaces altar bells during the celebration of the Tridentine Paschal Triduum at the end of Lent in the Catholic Church.
Their sound is rather like a small tuned bell, only with a much brighter sound and a much longer resonance. Similar to tuned finger cymbals, crotales are thicker and larger; they also have slight grooves in them. The name comes from the Greek crotalon, for a castanet or rattle.
Illustration taken from the drawing of an ancient marble in Spon's Miscellanea, [1] representing one of the crotalistriae performing.. In classical antiquity, a crotalum (κρόταλον krotalon) [2] was a kind of clapper or castanet used in religious dances by groups in ancient Greece and elsewhere, including the Korybantes.
The generic name Crotalus is derived from the Greek word κρόταλον krótalοn, which means "rattle" or "castanet", and refers to the rattle on the end of the tail, which makes this group (genera Crotalus and Sistrurus) so distinctive. [3] As of July 2023, 44 [4] to 53 [5] species are recognized as valid.
Rattlesnake skin has a set of overlapping scales that cover the entire body, providing protection from a variety of threats, including dehydration and physical trauma. [63] The typical rattlesnake, genus Crotalus, has the top of its head covered with small scales, except, with a few species, a few crowded plates directly over the snout. [64]
Sistrurus species differ from the larger rattlesnakes of the genus Crotalus in a number of ways. They are smaller in size, but also their scalation is different: Sistrurus species have nine large head plates (same as Agkistrodon), whereas in Crotalus (and almost all other viperids), the head is mostly covered with a large number of smaller scales.
There was no clear difference in the sounds made by the different species measured: Crotalus horridus, Crotalus adamanteus, Crotalus atrox, Crotalus cerastes, Crotalus viridis and Sistrurus catenatus. This pattern implies that the rattling "could serve as a general attention-getting device", which "is designed as a deimatic or startle display".
The Great basin rattlesnake was first formally named by Laurence Monroe Klauber in 1930 as a subspecies of Crotalus confluentus (now known as Crotalus viridis). [5] It is commonly considered a subspecies of Crotalus oreganus. [6] [4] The type locality is "10 miles northwest of Abraham on the Road to Joy, Millard County, Utah." [1]