A writhing den of 20 rattlesnakes found hiding in garage of Arizona home
An Arizona homeowner’s suspicion that three rattlesnakes were hiding in his garage proved vastly off the mark, when a snake catcher found 20.
The discovery was made at a home in Mesa, and the snakes launched into a deafening chorus of rattles during a removal operation by Rattlesnake Solutions, a company specializing in trespassing rattlesnakes.
Snake wrangler Marissa Maki found most of them piled around the home’s hot water heater, and she resorted to picking them up in clumps with her tongs, like servings of venomous pasta.
“That is a lot of snakes. ... I’m not going to lie. This is crazy,” Maki noted at the scene.
“I’m guessing more than one of these (adults) was a mom that had babies.”
At least five adult Western diamondbacks were found in the garage, including one pregnant and about “to pop any day now.”
Western diamondbacks give birth to live offspring, and they will stay together an average of 10 days before the young strike out — after shedding their skin for the first time, Rattlesnake Solutions reports.
Multiple skin sheds were found in the box-filled garage, indicating as many as 40 snakes had lived on site at some point, according to company owner Bryan Hughes.
“It looks like it’s been a group estivation (hibernation) and rookery site for quite some time, so we’ll never know how many rattlesnakes have come and gone over time,” he said.
“This is our record for the most rattlesnakes caught in one call!”
It is suspected the snakes found their say into the garage via a desert wash beside the yard. Washes are known to hold flood waters during storms and can serve as wildlife highways in dryer periods.
The snakes were plentiful enough to fill two buckets, and they were taken to a location in the desert and released in the wild.
Maki suspects 15 babies were the offspring of just two of the adults she captured.
She also discovered a gap in the lower side of the garage door, which is how the snakes were coming and going as they pleased.
This story was originally published September 13, 2023 at 9:21 AM.