Changing how people view and treat snakes
There’s something special about moms, right? So, today’s post is about an under-appreciated group of moms (you guessed it), Arizona Black Rattlesnakes! Human moms – you think you have it tough? Rattlesnake maternal duties may only last a couple weeks, but during that time they may have to protect their kids from extreme temperatures, a …
When we encountered this Rock Rattlesnake a few weeks ago, we were aiming for a unique shot, but ended up with something completely unexpected and difficult to explain.
Pictured here is Glendy, a male Arizona Black Rattlesnake, at his darkest and lightest. Like many snakes, Arizona Black Rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerberus) undergo morphological color change as they age. What is illustrated here is rarer in snakes; physiological color change is probably most well-known in chameleons, but Arizona Black Rattlesnakes can do this too! What’s …
Around our home, the most commonly seen snakes are Eastern Patch-noseds, the high-elevation sister species of Western Patch-nosed Snakes. Like their lowland cousins, Whiptail Lizards are a staple of their known diet, so we assumed that was what the one we spotted was after as he diligently excavated a burrow in our yard one June …
On a balmy August night, Melissa and I headed up a canyon near our home. We had explored this area during the day, but recent night visits revealed orb-weaver spiders, rattlesnakes and vinegaroons hunting under cover of night. Though the pine forest air cools off quickly after sunset, rocky canyonsides hold heat a bit longer, …
A snake’s scaled snout pokes forth from a crag recess and feels its first direct rays of sun in months. Her body remains in passage, still nearly as cold as the contents of your refrigerator. After months in her dark retreat, her now-warming head, the seat of most information sensing and processing, must be overwhelmed …
In August, 2018, we were blessed by one of the most exciting and interesting wildlife observations in recent memory -– and it happened right outside our door! We did our best to film and photo document what we saw, and we are excited to bring the saga back to life in this series of posts. …
Happy World Snake Day! July 16 is World Snake Day: an opportunity to celebrate snakes and raise awareness about their conservation. While snakes are threatened by many of the same issues that affect all wildlife (habitat loss, climate change, and disease), negative attitudes toward snakes may be the biggest barrier to their conservation because it …
A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 6 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 5 After a late night of surveilling wild snakes, I get outside mid-morning on the off-chance I can find one of our subjects sunning in the damp vegetation. With all the difficulty we’ve had in keeping up with them …
A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 4 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 3 The day Carol showed up, we checked under the truck bed liner to find Daryl still coiled in a hunting posture under its downhill edge. “There are two lepidus in the yard…” we would say to one another …