When old Dan first told me that, I thought I’d want to wear thick boots to harvest watermelons in rattler country. 
I’ve had a few old timers tell me Cooperheads smell like cucumbers. Me and my fathers friend was walking in a field and I caught a hint of cucumbers in the air. About the time i got the words out of my mouth he was running back to the car.
I’ve handled several rattlesnakes and eaten a few. Also handled plenty of moccasins, copperhead, coral, and others. Wild snakes have a stench that hard to describe. It’s not real strong or overpowering unless you get it on your hands. Then it is quite noticable.
If any of you have ever smelled a rotten watermelon in the field. Actually had some on you…you know got a good dose of it. It has a certain stench that could be considered similar. Ripe watermelons smell great, sweet, delicious…fried rattlesnake smells sweet and delicious but not like a watermelon.
The only time I smelled watermelons and saw a snake was when I used to haul watermelons as a kid. Snakes like to hang out in the watermelon patches because the sand is warm and the prey is plentiful (field mice, lizards, moles, gopher etc.).
Never heard it said snakes smell like watermelons before. Actually made me laugh until I gave it some thought.
You can bet I’m gonna check it out more. Hell, I see snakes quite often.
A “rattlesnake” is a type of watermelon cultivated in the South before the Civil War. The name refers to its pattern of stripes.
Perhaps Dan was making a joke about the Civil War.
I know some Guaymi Indians down in Costa Rica who can actually smell snakes from several yards away.
I wouldn’t have believed them, but their demonstrated sense of smell was ridiculously good. Every time I cut into a papaya, if they were anywhere within 100 yards or so, they would show up within 2-3 minutes for a slice. I’m pretty sure they were smelling it.
Fruit to Human Telepathy.
*::Now You Know::
*
Either that, or there are always some snakes within 100 yards of wherever you are.
zombie or no
you would think with all their jungle skills they could find their own food and not just smell other peoples food.
Rattlesnakes don’t smell like watermelon but Hoop snakes smell just like new tires and can be detected up to 50 yards away by the smell alone. Unfortunately, that is still not far enough to escape if you catch a whiff.
Just mentioning that cucumbers do smell a lot like watermelon. Same family, I think.
But then, you have to ask, what do watermelons smell like? Do they smell as well as trained bloodhounds do?
So…rattlesnakes smell like muskmelons?
No, snakes use their tongues and Jacobson’s organs to smell and I don’t think melons are equipped with those.
I’ve never really been aware that even watermelons smell like watermelons. So far as I can tell, watermelons are sugar water with an interesting texture, and no distinguishing aroma at all.
As long as this zombie is open anyway – no, rattlesnakes don’t smell like watermelon. I’ve handled hundreds, of perhaps a dozen or more species, and they all smell like rattlesnake.
And while we are dealing with myths, the quote upthread about someone who “unearthed a nest of copperhead young (eggs and some newborns)” is mistaken. The copperhead is ovoviviparous, meaning that shell-less eggs are retained within the body of the female until they hatch, and she then “gives birth” to live young. There are no copperhead “nests” containing eggs to be found anywhere.
I’ve heard the same warning about snakes. I was under the impression that the smell was from glands when they get upset.
Many animals produce a musky order when scared or upset. Even humans have the “smell of fear” when they are extremely frightened.
I think watermelons smell like rattlesnakes. Probably a defensive adaptation on the part of the watermelons.
Around here, it is said that water moccasins smell like cucumber. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Anybody else heard this?
No, but I’ve heard the cucumber thing applied to copperheads. I’ve only handled a small number of copperheads, although I kept a pair on display for several years. They could, when annoyed, threatened, or otherwise provoked, expel a musky smelling fluid from glands near the cloaca. All were decidedly non-cucumberish.
I have handled multiple hundreds of water moccasins, captured them in the wild (this sometimes involving swimming in the Everglades at night wearing a head lamp and carrying a ‘snake hook’), bred them, exhibited them, and consider myself pretty familiar with them. They are in the same genus as copperheads, Agkistrodon. Same musk, and same lack of vegetable odors.
They didn’t want to spend all day foraging in the jungle, I guess. The whole reason I even knew them was because they wanted to live in the “big city”, i.e., the tiny 10-home town at the literal end of the road in extremely rural southern Costa Rica. The Guaymi that were happier on their “middle of nowhere” reservation in the middle of the jungle stayed on their reservation.