The reddish brown stripe running down the center of the back is disrupted by a series of large, black, chevron-like crossbands on the pinkish gray or tan body. The tail is uniform black. The scales are keeled . The head is large and sometimes with a dark diagonal line through the eye or just behind the eye. The tail ends in a rattle.
Juveniles resemble adults, but with a single rounded button at the tip of the tail.
This snake has a very limited range in our state, found in only 8 or 9 counties in north Florida. It ranges as far south as Alachua and Dixie Counties and as far west as Hamilton and Suwannee Counties. There are verbal reports that this snake occurs in a few northern counties of the panhandle, but there are no verified records. Outside of Florida, the species ranges north to southern Maine and west to central Texas and southeastern Minnesota. Timber rattlesnakes in Florida prefer low bottomlands where it is fairly damp, river beds, hardwood hammocks, pine flatwoods, swamps, and cane thickets.