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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.
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.
Crotalus tlaloci can be distinguished from similar species of snake such as Crotalus triseriatus by specific scale counts, a proportionately smaller rattle, and a proportionally longer tail. It can also be told apart by a dark narrowing marking near its eye.
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.
Like other rattlesnakes, its tail has a rattle, which is composed of keratin. Each time the snake sheds its skin, a new segment is added to the rattle. However, the rattle is fragile and may break off, and the frequency of shedding can vary. So, the snake's age cannot be determined by the number of segments or length of the rattle.
Crotalus morulus, or the Tamaulipan rock rattlesnake, is a species of rattlesnake from Mexico, closely related to and previously considered a subspecies of Crotalus lepidus. [2] [3] The name morulus comes from the Latin word morus for mulberry in reference to their mottled patterns. As with all rattlesnakes, it is venomous. [4]
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.
Often, the sound of rattles forms a connection to the supernatural world when the rattles are employed by shamans. The use of the raven rattle, like the one pictured to the right, always implies power, which when used in dances, symbolize the status of the chief, who has a hereditary right to use the rattle. [6]