NOT QUITE RAGING REPTILES -- Despite the fear and loathing rattlesnakes provoke, they fight like gentlemen among themselves.

Ray Sasser of the Dallas Morning News described; a spring battle between two male western rattlers vying for mating rights to a nearby female.

The snakes were about the same size – each about 4 feet long ­– and engaged in a bout that lasted about 20 minutes.

“The rattlers are not immune to their own venom,” Sasser points out. “Out of professional courtesy, they don’t bite one another. They instead perform what amounts to an arm wrestling bout, which sounds weird for an animal that doesn’t have arms.

“Rattlers make up for the lack of appendages by substituting their bodies for arms, rearing as high as possible off the ground and trying to force their opponent into submission.”