Crotalus lepidus

[nahish2001]

I'm a Latin student, mainly because I am trying to come to an understanding of the Latin names of animals. I noticed a little thing in the Latin name of this snake that confused me: the name of the Rock Rattlesnake is Crotalus Lepidus, with an E. Lepidus means "friendly" or "likeable". What is the temperament of this snake? Because on a vocab quiz we had, the word Lapidus came up, lepidus being with an E and lapidus with an A. Lepidus translates to "of the rock" or "stone". This makes more sense to me, becuase they generally won't describe a snake's temperament in the Latin name, it's usually about an interesting lifestlye or physical characteristic, or named after the person that described it. Tell me what you think. Did they describe it wrong? Or do I sound like I'm on crack?

[BWSmith]

C lepidus is a Rock Rattlesnake

[BWSmith]

Well, noone else replied so i guess I get a point ;)

[ReptileHQ]

That sounds like a pretty intelligent observation to me...

I have found that any time an animal is named after a person, it's latin species name ends in an i...eg. A. dumerillii, so on....

Chris

[Hamster of Borg]

Sorry for the slow reply, I just signed up... leps are one of the most laid back rattlers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I've even hooked leps in the wild and had them not so much as rattle at me. I still don't exactly consider them friendly. :)

Ham

[reptilesalonica]

I will reply only for the latin names. I like them very much and beyond that they are very useful when people from other parts of the world (like me) are talking for the same snake. For example here in Greece the common name of Telescopus fallax is "Agiofido" meaning "Sacred snake". If we talk about snakes and we use their common names we lost some time before we have to search for the snake and it's scientific name, to know if we're talking about the same species. Beyond that, the majority of the snakes don't have only one common name and then the chaos begins. Therefore it is better to talk with scientific names to be sure for what species we're talking about ~Greg~

[nahish2001]

Originally posted by ReptileHQ
That sounds like a pretty intelligent observation to me...

I have found that any time an animal is named after a person, it's latin species name ends in an i...eg. A. dumerillii, so on....

Chris

Yeah, that I or II on the end shows possession of names and a few nouns, so dumerilli means Dumerill's boa, or exactly The Boa of Dumerill.

[cobraman]

Ham, I wish I could have had your luck. In 1995 I spent several days in ICU after 15 vials of antivenin, and being on a respirator from a Rock Rattlesnake. However,I think you are correct about them not rattling much. This one bit me without ever rattling. Come to think of it, I don' think I ever heard any of them rattling.
Blessings,
Ray Hunter

[Hamster of Borg]

That certainly doesn't sound like it was a very pleasant experience. I hope never to have to go through it myself, but, they do say its not a matter of 'if', its a matter of 'when' for those of us who do choose to keep venomous species. We just count our blessings, and day by day be as careful as possible.

I have one little girl right now that is a buzz-tail. She's the last one to start making noise when the hot room door opens, but she makes a racket when she thinks you're going to be messing with her or her cage. :)

http://www.ravnos.org/photos/venomous/lucretia2.jpg

Ham

[J_Riley]

Originally posted by nahish2001
with an E. Lepidus means "friendly" or "likeable".

Lepidus translates to "of the rock" or "stone".


Ok, so which one of those was supposed to be Lapidus???

Scientists are not linguists, someone probably misread some sloppy handwriting and transposed a letter...I'm guessing they most likely meant the spelling which = "of the rock"

[Hamster of Borg]

lapideus = of stone.
lepidus = pleasant , charming, elegant, witty.
Lepidus = name of a family in the patrician gens Aemilia.

[nahish2001]

Originally posted by J_Riley
Ok, so which one of those was supposed to be Lapidus???

Scientists are not linguists, someone probably misread some sloppy handwriting and transposed a letter...I'm guessing they most likely meant the spelling which = "of the rock"
'
what i meant to say is that
LEpidus is friendly or pleasant
LApidus is of the stone
sorry about that