I spotted this Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake standing out amongst dark basalt on a crumbly hillside in the Maricopa Mountains a couple of years back. It’s only the second I’d seen in the range, with the first not resulting in a photograph worth saving.
I found this Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake out on the surface on a hot day.
The camouflage of this animal doesn’t appear to be working from narrow perspective of the photo, but in greater context, this snake is very difficult to spot. Adjacent hillsides and iron-rich boulders break apart, and this is one of countless reddish blotches against the lighter matrix below. While the snake itself may stand out like a sore thumb, the brain tends to throw it away as noise.
A good read about how our minds tend to do this, even with incredibly important or obvious things:
Gibson, B. S., & Jiang, Y. (1998). Surprise! An unexpected color singleton does not capture attention in visual search. Psychological Science, 9(3), 176–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00034
A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake from the Phoenix area. These snakes can be amazingly adaptable, often perfectly matching the rocky areas where they live in color, and even more difficult to see with the jagged, chaotic pattern. This one carries a PIT Tag, implanted by our team to identify it in the future as part of our ongoing research of urban rattlesnake populations.
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.
A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake found in ambush at sunup on a hot day in Arizona. Nearby, a cave with several more has been used as an aestivation site to avoid death in the summer months.
This photograph was taken in 2014. In recent years, the site has been abandoned, most likely due to increased human activity, based on evidence and observation of similar sites in the region.
Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnakes (Crotalus pyrrhus) are commonly seen by hikers in the Phoenix area at popular parks, even those entirely within the city. They have a relatively extreme level of camouflage for a rattlesnake, and many people are surprised to learn just how many rattlesnakes they walk by even at the most heavily-hiked parks in the city. This is one of several hundred that inhabit one of these parks, found on a hillside below a trail.
A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus pyrrhus) in ambush along a ledge in central Arizona. While most of the boulder field where it was found is made of rock similar to how this snake looks … this particular large boulder made of light colored granite helped make this one easy to spot. We got some photos from a distance and left it there to hopefully succeed in getting that chuckwalla or ground squirrel it’s looking for.
A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus pyrrhus) resting in a small cave during the hottest time of the year. This location receives almost no sun, due to its depth and aspect, which makes it an ideal aestivation site.
Snakes, as do other ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals, do regulate their body temperature by managing external forces. It’s more than just basking in the sun … they also spend a lot of time and energy trying to stay cool. For animals in Arizona, that can be a challenge. These sites, where they return each year when temperatures become lethal, are just as important as a winter hibernation den for rattlesnakes in cooler areas.
A Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake making its way up a nearly vertical wall, taking advantage of numerous leverage opportunities. Rattlesnakes can climb, but not with the same skill as some non-venomous snakes, like gophersnakes or kingsnakes. Even from a moderate height, a fall can injure or even kill the animal, so caution is needed.
