Rattlesnakes Coming out of of Hibernation Early? Nope. Right on time.

Posted on February 16, 2017February 11, 2022 by Bryan Hughes

It’s all over Facebook conversations and local news: Rattlesnakes! They’re out early due to warm weather! Hide your wife hide your kids!

Really though, it’s just not true. Rattlesnakes are coming out right on time, the same as they did last year and the year before. In fact, they’re coming out at the same time as they have on each of the years this story is reported. That is, every single year. That’s right, the story of rattlesnakes coming out early was also run on local news stations in 2016, 2015, 2014 … every year since I’ve been paying attention to it, starting in 2010. How is this possible? Obviously, it’s not.

Based on our records and hotline calls over 11 years and more than 20,000 instances, and backed up by notes and field surveys, and the large body of peer-reviewed literature on the topic: rattlesnakes are coming out right on time, as they always do.

This Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, along with 18 others, was spotted on a cold and rainy December night in 2021.

But, my friend saw a rattlesnake on the trail. Isn’t that odd for February?

No, it’s not. Though rattlesnake sightings are certainly more common once they’ve dispersed to hunt and find mates, the fact is that rattlesnakes can be seen on the surface any day of the year in Arizona. If someone in your favorite Facebook group has seen a rattlesnake on the trail, it may be an indication of many things, but it does not mean that rattlesnakes are coming out early.

Rattlesnakes hibernate from, roughly, November through early March. Hibernation doesn’t exactly look like what many people think, however, and is not an animal literally sleeping for months on end. On days with certain conditions, like a winter rain, or period of warm overnight temperatures, they may appear on the surface. (Yes, I said hibernation rather than brumation on purpose.)

What “nice” weather is can change; it doesn’t always mean warm and sunny, as many would expect. In fact, a day in the low 60’s with cloud cover and light rain after a period of several weeks without is prime condition to observe Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes sitting out in the open near their dens. A cold winter night with temperatures barely in the 40s after a long dry spell will have every rattlesnake coming up to drink, for example.

This may mean that warm weather (>70˚F and >45˚F low, or so) for a few days in a row could give rattlesnakes more reason to show up on the surface than if it were colder. What it also means, however, is that there are more simply more people out there, and more people means more chances to have a rattlesnake encounter.

More people = more encounters

Especially in popular hiking places like Peralta Trail in the Superstition Mountains or Piestewa Peak in Phoenix, a sunny Saturday in February is sure to draw many times as many hikers as a windy, cool and overcast day. This can amplify the chance for rattlesnake encounters, especially up hillsides or less populated trails where snakes are likely spending the Winter nearby.

The math is simple … the same number of snakes as always, but twice as many people outdoors, means twice as many sightings are possible. This little logical bit is missed, however, whenever that first rattlesnake of the year photo shows up in your favorite hiking or gardening group.

The news said they’re coming out early, though … the news is always right, right?

lol

Snakes found in the garage or the yard don’t count.

An increase in the amount of snake removal calls does not necessarily indicate an increase in rattlesnake activity. Many of the snake removal cases that we get this time of year are snakes found in the garage, under deep cover in the yard, or other similar situations where the snake has found deep Winter cover.

One surprising area where we consistently remove rattlesnakes is under the concrete pads laid under pool filter equipment. They’ve been there all Winter, and also come to the surface on sunny days. So, why are we (and other snake removal groups) getting called out more often?

The answer is simple: it’s because the home owners are also more active. We’re spending more time in the yard, doing Spring cleaning. That might be finally removing those bushes that went wild over the cooler months, getting to the junk alongside the house before it gets hot, and other busywork that’s common after the Holidays have worn off. Rattlesnakes are just starting to spend more time on the surface, and the increase of both their activity and our own makes for many more situations where running into an unexpected rattlesnake is possible.

Rattlesnakes spending the winter in the garage is a very common situation.

More people, more stories, more photos, more talk.

As more and more people use social media to report on every moment of their lives, rattlesnake sightings increase as well. As much as a selfie on top of the mountain is exciting, nothing beats a rattlesnake sighting for the almighty “Like”. While this experience in the expected time, like April, would just fall into the mix, a rattlesnake sighting in February gets an entirely different reaction. Some speculate global warming is causing them to come out earlier, others claim it’s that the first 75º day of the year triggers them to wanter in search of food, and other things that are completely made up.

So the snakes are out … so what?

Along with each of these reports of early rattlesnakes come a bewildering second series of comments – things similar to “OMG only 2 weeks left before I can’t hike anymore!” If you are spending time outdoors in the native desert areas of Arizona, you are hiking and biking past rattlesnakes constantly. A more useful way to think would be to learn about the realities of rattlesnakes; you’re not in danger if you are aware and resist silly behavior like hitting them with sticks, picking them up, or shooting them.

The next time someone says something about rattlesnakes coming out early, send them this article. Here are some of the rattlesnakes I’ve seen in January and February in previous years; they’re out again, right on schedule:

Extreme Specialization of the Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake [video]

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Bryan Hughes

One of the most beautiful snakes in the world is also one of the most common to see in the Phoenix area. Their specialized color adaptation is so strong that snakes found on the South side of Phoenix are completely different than those from the North valley. Even though these may be the most common rattlesnake on South Mountain, most Ahwatukee residents that we serve have never seen one until the moment one has shown up in the yard.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake Mating Dance!

Posted on January 15, 2017January 16, 2017 by Bryan Hughes

Here’s a quick video of a couple of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes that I watched for a few weeks last Spring. How do rattlesnakes flirt? This is how it happens, with the “twitchy dance”, along with lots of tongue flicks and tail flipping. They’ll do this off and on for up to a few weeks.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7w03pOMfug[/embedyt]

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake: The Most Common Snake in Phoenix

Posted on January 12, 2017January 12, 2017 by Bryan Hughes

There’s no better first post topic for our new blog, perhaps, than one highlighting the most commonly removed snake species in the city. They’re also one of the most iconic animals in the American West: The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.

The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake is, as far as rattlesnakes go, a generalist. It can live in a wide variety of habitat and climates. In Arizona, this means any area where the city borders native Sonoran Desert habitat is also likely a resource for the Western Diamondback. Especially in areas North of the 101 in Scottsdale and Phoenix, where landscaping is a mix of native desert features and plants, rattlesnakes make their home.

We’ve relocated Western Diamondbacks from almost everywhere in the city at one time or another. Some of them, like those that show up in the center of the city, get there by hitchhiking in vehicles or landscaping materials. Some are intentionally captured and brought there by people that think that a rattlesnake would be a great pet, and released once they realize how wrong they were! For the most part, Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes are limited to areas that come into direct contact with native desert.

How big does the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake get?

In the Phoenix area, a very large Western Diamondback Rattlesnake is about 4 feet long, with most reaching a slightly smaller adult size in the 3.5′ range. While some individuals may get into the 5′ range, it is very rare. In fact, in over a thousand rattlesnakes captured and relocated by Rattlesnake Solutions over the years, only one even got close, at an estimated 4’10”. It does happen, but to say “diamondbacks get 5′ long” is a lot like saying “an adult human is 7′ tall. It happens, but it’s not common, and generally not useful when discussing size. Things especially fall apart when a person claiming to see a 6′ diamondback also claims to see them often.

What is most likely, is that people just aren’t as great at estimating size of objects as we like to believe we are, combined with just how bad our memories actually are with remembering the details. If you want to do a simple experiment, get a 4′ (or so) stretch of rope or hose, and coil it in the bushes in the backyard. Ask someone to come out, without telling them why, and tell them to give you the size from 10′ away. If you get any answer that isn’t “how am I supposed to know, I’m not a tape measure!”, it likely won’t be anywhere near the actual size.

While there are some reports of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes getting very large (over 7′ long), this is very rare, and even more rare here in Arizona. Diamondbacks found in the Eastern part of their range in Texas tend to get larger, in-part due to having larger prey to eat, and more of it. There are also genetic differences between these populations, with Diamondbacks East of the continental divide area (about the Arizona/New Mexico border) that may make our Western, Western Diamondbacks end up on the small end. Even more confusingly, there is a completely different species, called an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, that does not live in Arizona at all, and gets larger than any other species of rattlesnake. All of this can cause some confusion when someone says, “hey, I saw a 6 foot diamondback!”, and tries to do some fact-checking on Google.

What part of the City has the most Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes?

Scottsdale 🙂 That’s an easy one. By looking at our relocation data over the years, the corridor above the 101, West to about the 51, has the highest rate of rattlesnake encounters. This isn’t just because of location – it’s more about what is there. Mostly new-ish developments, continued development, and natural landscaping contribute to wildlife encounters here. This doesn’t mean that if you live in North Scottsdale, you’re destined to meet a rattlesnake. … If your yard is within about a block of native desert habitat, however, it’s likely.

Further into the city, your odds of running into a diamondback are much lower. Even on mountains where other species of rattlesnake are fairly common, like Camelback Mountain or Mummy Mountain, diamondbacks have more or less been killed off by surrounding traffic and development.

“I’ve seen Western Diamondbacks … are those different than coontail rattlesnakes?”

This is a question we get from time to time, and no, they are the same species. Western Diamondbacks have a characteristic black and white banded tail just before the rattle. This can be used to identify them, and tell the difference between them and other species of rattlesnake.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes are also a great example of some of the confusion that comes from common names given to animals. It seems that almost every place in the Western United States has something that the locals will call a “diamondback”, though in reality there is only one Western Diamondback, Crotalus atrox, which lives in the Southern half of Arizona, Southeastern California, and East into Oklahoma and Arkansas. In much of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, locals may refer to the local “diamondbacks”, but the rattlesnakes that live there are actually Prairie Rattlesnakes or Great Basin Rattlesnakes.

They are also often mistaken for Mojave Rattlesnakes. Usually the mistaken identity is given to the diamondback, due to the Mojave’s more famous reputation for being overly ‘aggressive’.

Here are more photos of wild diamondbacks! For as common as they are, I never tire of seeing them. If you’ve seen any, tell us about it in the comments.