Rattlesnakes are among the most recognizable animals in the world.
When threatened, they curl and rise vertically to look larger. Their tail points up and rattles in front of their face.
The shaking is a stress response. The sound and shaking are also intentionally bizarre. Animals associate unfamiliarity with danger.
The snake’s posture and frozen vertical stance make no illusions about what it intends. Their asking price is simply, “come closer.”
This is authentic advertising. It’s a threat display with plenty of available inventory (“stay away — I’m dangerous”).
However, there are snakes that misrepresent their product.
Many snakes developed a mutation that gave them the rattle without the poison. Other predators began to recognize the rattle as dangerous due to these snakes’ authentic contemporaries and thus chose not to call their bluff.
These initial mutated snakes faked it to make it. Now? There’s a list of snake species selling products they don’t actually own.
