America's Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake

The timber rattlesnake's rattle is an iconic sound associated with danger in American culture, yet most people have never encountered one. Though found in thirty-one states and near many major cities, timber rattlesnakes exist largely in imagination and fear rather than in direct experience. Ted Levin's America's Snake examines the timber rattlesnake's place in American history and wildlife, alongside efforts to protect it from habitat loss, climate change, and human persecution. The book takes readers from laboratories studying the snake's evolutionary history to remote habitats carefully guarded by biologists and amateur herpetologists. Levin describes the timber rattler as a peaceable, social, long-lived creature that rarely bites despite widespread phobias about it. The snake serves as a symbol of both America and the complex challenges involved in wildlife conservation. Combining natural history, travel writing, and journalism, America's Snake features compelling characters, with the timber rattlesnake itself at the center—a creature that is frightening to many, endangered in reality, and remarkable in its own right.