Category: molossus

Blacktailed Rattlesnake Stopping on a Road Isn’t “Sunning”

Posted on by Bryan Hughes

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.

Blacktailed Rattlesnake With A Friend

Posted on by Bryan Hughes

I found this young Blacktailed Rattlesnake resting under the dried-out husk of a small mammal (skunk?) in a cave near Phoenix on a survey of lands managed by Desert Foothills Land Trust.

In wet years, this small cave fills with water from a few inches to around a foot deep. It becomes putrid slop, full of javelina feces and dozens of animals hiding from the heat. This small mammal had died in that water, eventually settling against this wall. This summer, the cave was bone dry. But, the dozen or so rattlesnakes that aestivate here each year still showed up.

Blacktailed Rattlesnake Den

Posted on by Bryan Hughes

After a relatively unproductive weekend in the early Spring at higher elevation, I made a quick stop by a large rocky outcrop on the way home on a whim. I have been driving past this particular rock for more than a decade, always in a hurry somewhere or dead tired, always thinking “one nof these days, I’ll check that out; it has to be a den“. Well that day was the day, and of course, it was a winter den. This large blacktailed rattlesnake was laid out over a boulder getting some sun, with others another in the crevices behind it. I’ll check it out again next year in more prime conditions.