This couple of female Arizona Black Rattlesnakes was hanging out at the entrance of a den a few summers ago. While these sites are more densely populated during the winter, they’ll also be used by gravid (pregnant) females during the summer, where they can be seen basking in preparation of the little ones during the monsoon season. Elsewhere on the hillside, other females were doing the same.
A morning flight out of Costa Rica gave me one extra evening near the airport in Liberia, Costa Rica, to end a family vacation. I went into the coastal thornscrub to see what there was to see, and found a few of these large Central American Lyresnakes. They seem thicker and less likely to bite than the thin, bug-eyed lyresnakes here in the United States. Handling them seems a bit more like it’s a gophersnake or ratsnake in comparison. Unlike those snakes, however … these do have a relatively mild venom, that I would not like to test from one of these big snakes.
A Sonoran Lyresnake (Trimorphodon lambda) from border area of Arizona/Mexico earlier in the year. These are among the least often seen species of snakes in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, despite being quite common in the right habitat.
A Speckled Racer cruising through the undergrowth in extreme southern Texas. These snakes just barely enter the United States at this point, and can be found throughout tropical Central America and northern South America.
Prior-Magee, J. S., & McKerrow, A. (2018). Speckled Racer (Drymobius margaritiferus) rSPRAx_CONUS_2001v1 Habitat Map. U.S. Geological Survey.
I saw this Tiger Rattlesnake moving along a rocky drainage on a hot summer morning. The wash was full of deep caves and access to cooler temperatures that it needed to survive the hottest time of year. She was also gravid, and in time she gave birth in these same caves.
I saw this big Blacktailed Rattlesnake crossing a roadway in the mountains southeast of Tucson. It had made most of its way across, and then did what cost many snakes their lives … it froze.
These animals’ primary defense is not the famous rattle or a venomous bite, but camouflage. In most cases, that pattern and color do a great job to hide by simply stopping in place until the threat goes away. But, roads aren’t part of that plan. This can get them run over, often intentionally, or otherwise killed by people passing by.
This is the same behavior that people often misinterpret as “sunning on the trail” or “soaking up the heat from the road” on a hot summer night. It’s not that snakes may not bask in the open like this, but that’s usually not what that is.
As there were quite a few side-by-sides cruising around that weekend, I got out to help this one off the road so it wouldn’t end up as too many of them do, losing their head and rattles to some excitable dope.
This pair of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes were found at a den in central Arizona near the edge of the species range in the area. With at least fifty observable individuals, this is a large den for these snakes in the state, which is also shares with Blacktailed Rattlesnakes and Arizona Black Rattlesnakes. With multiple large males roving around, I was watching hoping for combat, but it didn’t happen this day. This photo was taken right after the snakes eventually moved from courtship to mating, with tails elevated. They remained in this location for at least the rest of the day.
An Arizona Ridgnosed Rattlesnake from Cochise County, Arizona. This is a small rattlesnake that is found in a handful of mountainous areas in the southeastern corner of the state. A hiker may encounter one if they are in the Santa Rita, Patagonia, Huachuca, Canelo, or Whetstone ranges.
Interestingly, every rancher and long-term resident of those areas that I’ve personally spoken to about this species has no idea what I’m talking about. This mirrors many other instances that have taught me one thing: living in an area for a long time, even being born and raised there, does not grant any particular expertise of the animals that live there.
This snake has relatively weak venom for a rattlesnake, but it is still an emergency situation where antivenom should be sought after. It would be hard to find a situation where one would envenomate a person without actually picking it up.
Holzman, S. D., Massey, D. J., Clements, A., Boesen, K. J., & Shirazi, F. M. (2018). Arizona Ridge-nosed rattlesnake envenomation: Case report of a personal encounter with the official state reptile of Arizona, Crotalus willardi willardi. Toxicon, 151, 84–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxicon.2018.07.001
A brilliantly colored Speckled Rattlesnake from central Arizona. The rock in this particular spot doesn’t look very much like the snakes, but the occasional oxidized rock breaks off from higher and tumbles to the ground. When that orange rock sits under a bush or random location against the other grey and browns, it’s just part of the landscape. This snake, though, was hard to miss.
This Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake, at the time this photo was taken, was very gravid (pregnant). She was in a cool area with higher ambient moisture, which is a special place during the heat of the summer in Arizona. She’s still there this year, though at the time I saw her, she was not notably gravid.
