Every mom needs a day off. So the lucky (or smart?) rattlesnakes that nest in groups help each other out with maternal duties. If one is still pregnant, and thus needs to be on the surface basking, she attends to the newborns while the new mother stays in cover for a well-deserved rest. Priscilla was the first rattlesnake we observed exhibiting this baby-sitting behavior. You can read more about Priscilla and House in A Rattlesnake Helper? Male rattlesnakes occasionally help out in this way too. Although we’ve never observed any active care or protective behavior from males, just the pre ..read more

In a research project led by Masters student Erin Allison, we evaluated how different messaging strategies can improve attitudes about rattlesnakes. We used an online survey to evaluate the perceptions of a diverse group of 1,182 US adults before and after they watched either a relational or instrumental video about rattlesnakes. The relational video showcased rattlesnakes as creatures with complex social behaviors, emphasizing their roles as caring mothers and their interactions with other snakes. The instrumental video, in contrast, highlighted the role rattlesnakes play in the environment a ..read more

Sigma snuggles one of her babies (Arizona Black Rattlesnakes). 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 suite of predators, annoying (and deadly?) squirrels, and clumsy humans with cameras… By the time they give birth, mother rattlesnakes likely haven’t eaten in weeks or even months, but they wait anot ..read more

Snakes Are Everything #10 Hiral Naik, a snake ecologist that works at the interface between science and conservation, will speak about some of the unique traits that snakes possess that allow them to inhabit and adapt to different ecosystems. From fangs and teeth to how they conceal, snakes truly are evolutionary marvels. Register to join us live and participate in the Q&A on Thursday 8 June at 10:30 am PDT / 1:30 pm EDT / 5:30pm GMT. Register ..read more

Article in the New York Times on social reptiles! Online classes and workshops In-person displays & presentations Hotline calls & texts Snake rescues Coexisting With Pitvipers Symposium! We had our first Rock Rattlesnake rescue this year. This shy little girl was preventing the homeowners from getting in their front door. Signatures submitted to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to End The Lake Providence Snake Rodeo Interactions on Facebook and Instagram Hours watched on our YouTube channel Melissa introduces ..read more

With more surface area to their volumes than adults, newborn rattlesnakes heat and cool at faster rates. Piling into a wad reduces the amount of air-exposed skin and may blunt temperature swings. At its most efficient, cooler babies from the bottom of the wad clamber to the top to get sun and heat from their hot siblings who were, until then, on top. In reality, it appears quite disorderly, as the wad’s members churn to distribute heat more evenly throughout. In arid regions especially, water loss through the skin is reduced when snakes gather into wads. Ecdysis (the shedding of skin) is a w ..read more

Snakes Are Everything #9 Bryan Hughes will discuss snakes living in and around human development: who thrives, who has no tolerance for urban environments, and what does sustainable co-habitation between snakes and homeowners look like? Bryan founded Rattlesnake Solutions LLC in 2010 to save snakes from shovels and shotguns and each year they resolve hundreds of nuisance situations involving snakes. Register to join us live and participate in the Q&A. Register Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake overlooking the Phoenix valley photographed by Bryan Hughes ..read more

#SnakeHero We lost an amazing champion for snakes, wildlife, and wild places in 2022. Kathy Bricker not only worked with international conservation organizations, but started local efforts to preserve open space, recycle, connect people with nature, and raise awareness about birds and environmental issues. But it wasn’t just relatively popular and well-known issues that caught Kathy’s attention. In 1989, when two young Reticulated Pythons needed a home, Kathy and her husband Jim gave them one. Pivot and Mario spent the next 27 years educating thousands of children and adults through Kathy’s ..read more

(they don’t want to bite you) On May 16th, 2021, I hopped on a flight from Newark to Tucson. A few hours later, in an unfamiliar airport in Arizona, I met a professor I’d never spoken to in person, linked up with a fellow volunteer I’d only communicated with via text, and was handed the car keys of the PhD student for whom I would spend the summer working. The PhD student in question was 160 miles away, at our final destination, a place cartographers might lovingly call the middle of nowhere. That was the beginning of the wildest — and most snake-filled — summer of my life. Mohave Rattlesnake ..read more

My Saga With Snakes Fear of Snakes is one of the most common phobias. From mild repulsion to extreme reactions — from screaming to fainting — most people react negatively to Snakes. Is it because they are so different from the rest of us vertebrates, gliding effortlessly despite the absence of limbs or fins? Is it bad press and superstition since time immemorial? The fact is that of some 3000 species of Snakes worldwide fewer than 15% are venomous. Facts don’t matter to people like me whose fear of Serpents ranked somewhere between screaming and turning to stone. Once I was returning to my car ..read more