Which prey category do juvenile Western Diamondback snakes typically focus on more heavily?
Answer
Smaller prey items like lizards
Dietary intake in the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake scales significantly with the animal's developmental stage. While large adults often target substantial prey like rabbits, juvenile snakes concentrate their feeding efforts on smaller food sources available to them. The text specifically notes that younger individuals often focus more heavily on smaller vertebrates, with various lizards being a primary component of their early diets, reflecting their smaller size and feeding apparatus capacity.
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