What is a rattlesnake’s rattle made of?
The rattle is made up of nested, hollow beads of dry, hard pieces of modified scales from the tail tip. A new rattle segment is added each time the snake sheds. The vibration of these shell-like rings on the end of its tail is what makes the rattling sound.
Some people think that you can tell the age of a rattlesnake by how many beads there are on its rattle–they think that snakes only shed once a year. But, this isn’t true. Rattlesnakes shed as they grow, and even as adults shed more than once a year. Plus, rattlesnakes sometimes lose their rattles to predators or by other means. So, the rattle is not an accurate way to determine a rattlesnake’s age. However, the number of rings can sometimes determine how big the snake is. Baby rattlesnakes are born without rattles. They don’t form the first segment of their rattle until one to two weeks of age when they shed their skin for the first time. As the snake grows, the number of segments increases. So the louder the rattle, the bigger the snake unless the snake has lost segments of its rattle or lost the rattle altogether.