gnu -

I'm not sure our little visitor was a rattler. It was probably too young to have shed more than a couple of skins, and the "rattles" are the leftovers from discarded skins. It looked like it had an ordinary pointy tail, and didn't show any visible fangs.

There are a few Massasauga in surrounding areas, but so far as has been reported they'd be extremely rare in the immediate locale.

Ours was "spotted" similarly, and the guidebooks on snakes in Kansas don't show any other common ones in the area except for several grass snakes, all of which have stripes, and a few less common ones mostly with solid colors rather than the "splotches" on this one.

I'll have to negotiate a more formal introduction if (s)he comes back, or if mommy comes around to see why we kicked her kid out.

John