This is by far one of the coolest snakes I’ve encountered. It’s a relatively large Black-Tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus) in the mountain phase coloration. I most often find the less dramatically patterned desert phase molossus, and the differences between the two are obvious.
This particular rattlesnake shows some extremely high contrast between pattern elements, but had the calm, almost boid steadiness that I think is so cool about molossus. She didn’t rattle, even when I tried my best to get her to coil up for some photos. We let her continue her way to the rocky cliffside. About an hour later, we saw her again, coming back down the other way. It was just a good experience all around; one that sticks out in my mind of the hundreds of rattlesnakes I’ve seen in the last couple of years.
Of course, I took way more photographs than is necessary.
Tags: arizona, black-tailed rattlesnake, bryan d. hughes, Crotalus molossus, Field Herping, field herping arizona, mountain phase, Photography, rattle snake, rattlesnakes
