An Arizona Black Rattlesnake from an exposed desert mountain hiding from the sun. This snake is entirely black, missing the lighter-colored bands that are usually retained by the species into adulthood. Above at the crest of the hill, an outcrop of basalt serves as its den, throwing rocks down the bajada between a spring and lower drainage. This snake was about halfway up, still in spring egress staging, eventually descending to the drainage below for the year.
A Blacktailed Rattlesnake from just north of Phoenix, found on a long night hike of remote desert canyons. These snakes specialize in mountainous, rocky habitat, and are almost never found in the flats unless moving between nearby hills. They’re large rattlesnakes and often seen by hikers and hunters.
A Northern Cottonmouth from a quick trip to Texas in 2024. In about 6 hours, I lost count of how many there were. These are large, interesting snakes with complex social behavior, which are unfortunately well stuck in the monster that is the American urge to believe in nonsense.
All of them, as did every one of the hundreds of cottonmouths I’ve ever seen, did one of three things:
This pretty one was near my vehicle after I wrapped up a walk through the forest, followed by another just seconds later. I’ll be back for sure.
A Malabar Pitviper from southern India a couple of years ago on a wet night in the Western Ghats. After seeing a few of them, the convergent similarities in form and behavior with new world vipers, like the eyelash vipers, is amazing.
Banded Rock Rattlesnake from southeastern Arizona. These snakes, typically the males, can have a metallic blue-green shine along the back and outline of black bands, often against other bright pinks, blues, and orange. It matches the lichen covering rocks where they live. This one is a good example of a mature male of the species against the rocky backdrop of its habitat. From the uniform size of its rattle segments, it can be determined that it’s reached full size.
Can you tell the age of a rattlesnake from counting the segments of its rattle? For the most part: no. But sometimes, it’s easy. This young Western Diamondback Rattlesnake was found late in the monsoon season. From its rattle, it can be seen it’s shed its skin exactly two times – once to reveal the full button (the notched last segment) from the prebutton it was born with, which is now fully articulated against the proximal segment, which is attached to the tail. That means that this snake was either a successful early-monsoon baby, or a terribly unsuccessful one-year-old. Based on its size and very healthy weight, the former is certainly true. That means that this snake, at the time that it was photographed, was around 2 months old.
It was found crossing a roadway, and escorted to the side to be on its way.
Sonoran Sidewinders can be incredibly common in the right habitat, but that doesn’t often put them in the path of homeowners in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Of the six species of rattlesnakes that can be found at the native habitat contact zones, this species is the first to disappear whenever roads come in. They once spanned the entire Phoenix metro valley, found in the desert around the base of Camelback Mountain and as far north and east as Cave Creek and the foothills of Scottsdale. This one was found in an area that will become developed over the next decade, and this now dense population of snakes will likely disappear.
A pair of Arizona Black Rattlesnakes take the prime spot at the den, with a half dozen or more shuffling throughout the day behind them. For these snakes, it’s early den egress time, when they stage at and near the den for awhile before heading out for the season. This den is shared by two other species of rattlesnakes, though, all using the rocky area slightly differently. These are the last to emerge, with the Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes and Blacktailed Rattlesnakes having already dispersed for the year.
This was photographed in the late Spring several years ago in southeastern Arizona.
A large canebrake rattlesnake (timber rattlesnake) from forests of the southeast. This would not be a fun environment to live in if you were a squirrel.
A thin Western Diamondback Rattlesnake stopped for a moment while crossing a dirt road. Often, this behavior is misinterpreted as “sunning”. While snakes may stop to bask like this, in many cases, it’s just that the snake saw the observer first and stopped moving in hopes the perceived predator will not notice it. They don’t know what roads and trails are, however, so imagine it from their perspective: moving along, headed home after a long night of ambush hunting … a monster appears in the distance and comes directly to you! It’s no wonder they then become defensive. But as always, the easy way to remain safe is just not to bother it.
