Rattlesnakes of Arizona - 9 species of venomous pit vipers from Sonoran desert
- Thread starter ping-ping-clicka
- Start date
That is just plain false. both Copperhead/Cottonmouth are pit vipers. The Cottonmouth has very potent venom. Bites are not that common because they rarely bite unless handled or stepped on. Their venom isn't as potent as rattlesnakes but to suggest you don't need antivenin is wrong. My neighbor across the street stepped on a juvenile Copperhead coming out of her house last summer and was hospitalized for several days.
I have lived in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.
I used to river fish a lot, in my youth.
I have still never seen a rattlesnake.
Not one.
I’ve seen copperheads and cottonmouths.
Quite a few.
Weird.
Not that I’m in a hurry to experience one.
I used to river fish a lot, in my youth.
I have still never seen a rattlesnake.
Not one.
I’ve seen copperheads and cottonmouths.
Quite a few.
Weird.
Not that I’m in a hurry to experience one.
Joelski144
TDPRI Member
Yeah, ya do. Less doses maybe, probably far fewer doses, but each envenomation we've had this year have gotten at least a starter dose of CroFab.
Average rattler gets upwards of 20 doses, and depending, a lot more. Hemotoxin is nothing to mess around with!
TomBrokaw
Tele-Meister
My wife and I saw one in Joshua Tree a few years ago. We stayed well away from it.
loudboy
Tele-Holic
We've been here six years, and I haven't seen one either.
Black Widow spiders are very common, tho.
Lol! Crikey!Because Australia.
jman72
Friend of Leo's
Just saw this little guy out on the trail this afternoon here in Florida. Easy to step on if you're not careful.
So? these vipers hide in dunny pits and vipe your butt before biting it....
we only get red back spiders in our dunnies...
the dangers of crapping in Arizona....
we only get red back spiders in our dunnies...
the dangers of crapping in Arizona....
ZackyDog
Friend of Leo's
I always wondered how they did the rattlesnake from, Racing With The Devil (1976).
Last edited:
Never heard it in the woods, but heard it in the desert. I grew up in Tucson. A friend's Dad was killed by a rattler working out on a piece of land he owned. I was a camp counselor at a Y-camp up in Oracle in the summer of ‘76 - Oracle is more or less a Tucson suburb now, but was the middle of nowhere back then. I remember walking a whole cabin of city kids through the desert one afternoon, hotter than hell as you can imagine, when we heard that sound. I had to get them to be still and quiet and stay single file until we could figure out where it was. We found it a few feet off the trail not too far in front of the first kids in the line. We backed up very slowly and quietly until we were well clear of it, and then we found another route to where we were going. None of those kids knew what we were dealing with - I didn’t either really. But that sound is unmistakable - everyone instinctively stopped dead in their tracks when we heard it. Don’t know squat about the various types of Arizona rattlers, but knew one when I heard it…
-Ray
catdaddy
Tele-Afflicted
That's the truth! Twenty-five years ago my wife and I were hiking in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. As we followed a well-worn animal path along the top of a grassy bluff we heard "that sound" and instantly froze in our tracks- just a visceral instinctive reaction to something neither of us had ever heard before. It was a tense few moments before we were able to determine that a rattlesnake was just a few feet in front of us, and then we very slowly and carefully backed up on the path eventually choosing to circumvent the bluff altogether. Later that day we found a prairie rattler (Crotalus viridis) making its way up a dried mud hillside and got a photo (at a safe distance) of that one.
Not as much as Australia, but yeah. My grandpa got stung by a scorpion the day before Thanksgiving and he's okay, but it burns and tingles for a couple days.
SixStringSlinger
Poster Extraordinaire
Cottonmouth may not be as venomous, but I’ve never seen a mob of rattlesnakes swimming where I’m water-skiing!
Personally, I like rattlesnakes. What other dangerous animal tries to tell you you’re being stupid before you do something stupid?
Cottonmouths will flash their lighter-colored underside as a warning.
Most animals will warn before they attack in self-defense because they understand (at least on an instinctual level) that getting close enough to harm you means opening themselves up to harm, as well. There are also other costs. Venom production costs energy, bees die from leaving their stinger in you, etc.
For the most part, the only animal that won't warn you is the one that's actively hunting you.
