Man Left Shaken After Noticing One Strange Detail About The Snake He Was Photographing

Not all of Mother Nature's gifts seem to make sense, but they have a place on this Earth — even the ones that slither throughout the forests of New Jersey. When Dave Schneider and his colleague Dave Burkett were exploring a heavily wooded area, they stumbled across a peculiar little snake slinking between the trees. When the two Daves took a closer look at the baby serpent, they nearly jumped out of their own skin. This was no ordinary reptile.

Searching For Snakes

Pine Barrens, New Jersey, is known to house bundles of breeds of snakes and turtles and lizards, oh my! More specifically, it's home to timber rattlesnakes. Herpetologists Dave Schneider and Dave Burkett went to explore the area, but they had no idea what they were in for.

The Rattlesnake Nest

Schneider, Herpetological Associates’ Northern New Jersey regional manager, and his fellow scientist Burkett were in the midst of auditing Pine Barrens in 2019. While walking through the thick wooded area, they came across a timber rattlesnake nest.

Doting Mama

“It’s an area where female snakes hang out, get sun and let the embryos incubate. They have live young in late August, [and] the young usually stay by the mother," Burkett explained to The Sandpaper.

Snake Hatchlings

They were specifically told that a female timber rattlesnake recently gave birth in Pine Barrens, so it wasn't a shock when they found the hatchlings. There were baby rattlesnakes slithering around the proximity of the nest, and the two reptile experts were basking in it.