{"id":103645,"date":"2025-08-23T06:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T06:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/103645\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T06:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T06:26:09","slug":"cool-critters-the-rattlesnake-baby-boom-has-begun-whats-fact-and-whats-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/103645\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Critters: The rattlesnake baby boom has begun \u2013 what\u2019s fact and what\u2019s fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SPOKANE, Washington (The Spokesman-Review)<\/a> \u2014 Somewhere in a rodent burrow or rock crevasse on the eastern side of Washington, a large female snake is giving birth to a litter of fully formed babies. In a week or two, they\u2019ll get rattles \u2013 but not the kind with teething rings.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the world, baby rattlesnakes. Western rattlesnakes, one of 32 rattlesnake species found in the United States and the only venomous snake in Washington and North Idaho, bear live young through August and into early September.<\/p>\n

RELATED STORY: Spending time with rattlesnakes in eastern Idaho<\/a><\/p>\n

The western rattlesnake \u201cis common and widespread in eastern Washington,\u201d according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s going to become even more common during the next few weeks as the species\u2019 birthing season unspools. Females give birth to an average of 12 babies, each about 8 inches long. They display dark brown diamond-shaped blotches and a wide triangular head, similar to the adults. They\u2019re even born with tiny fangs and venom.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one crucial thing that the babies don\u2019t have. At least not yet.<\/p>\n

Instead of having a rattle on the tip of their tails, they have what\u2019s called a pre-button, a single nob that makes no sound, said snake ecologist Charles Peterson, professor emeritus of herpetology at Idaho State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mother typically stays with the babies 10-14 days until they shed their skin for the first time, which is when the pre-button is replaced by the first rattle segment,\u201d Peterson said. Then, as the snake grows larger, rattle segments are added with each shedding of the skin, he added.<\/p>\n

So, over the next few weeks, more and more babies equipped with a single rattle segment will slither away from their mothers to live on their own. If you\u2019re active outdoors, there\u2019s no need to panic. Like rattlesnakes in general, much of what we think we know about baby rattlesnakes is a myth, Peterson explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two big ones that I hear over and over \u2013 that their venom is more toxic than that of adult snakes and that they can\u2019t control the amount of venom they release,\u201d he said. \u201cNeither one of these is true. Their venom is not higher in toxicity, and yes, they do regulate how much venom they inject.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which doesn\u2019t mean young rattlesnakes are harmless. Although shy by nature, they may bite if they perceive a serious threat. What\u2019s more, even small doses of venom can cause health problems in people and pets. So, as with any rattlesnake, give them their space.<\/p>\n

Since we\u2019re on the topic of bites, rattlesnakes are far more likely to move away from perceived threats than to strike, according to decades of research.<\/p>\n

In one eyebrow-raising study, Cale Morris of the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary in Arizona spent days walking through the desert with a fake leg attached to a hiking boot. His intent? To find out what happens when humans step on rattlesnakes. In a 2024 interview with NPR, Morris said whenever he found a rattlesnake, he would \u201cstep on it with enough pressure to restrain it from moving but not enough to hurt it,\u201d similar to a hiker stepping on a snake by accident, he explained.<\/p>\n

The result? Some rattlers froze in place, others coiled, but the majority tried to flee. In fact, of 175 stepped-on rattlesnakes, only six struck the hiking boot attached to the fake leg, said Morris, whose findings were published in volume II of \u201cThe Biology of Rattlesnakes\u201d in 2017.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Peterson and his PhD students studied numerous rattlesnakes in the field. \u201cNot once did any come toward us,\u201d he said, adding that another persistent myth is that rattlesnakes are aggressive toward humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom their perspective, humans are predators. If a snake rattles the tip of its tail, it\u2019s warning you to stay away,\u201d Peterson explained.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re six times more likely to die from a dog attack or lightning strike than from a rattlesnake bite, according to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. Nonetheless, snake-related fatalities get lots of media attention whenever they occur. Last week, for example, news outlets across the country reported that a man hiking in Tennessee died after getting bitten by a rattlesnake when he picked it up.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cObserve snakes, like all wild animals, from a respectful distance,\u201d the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife advises on its website.<\/p>\n

For more information on our region\u2019s western rattlesnake, go to https:\/\/wdfw.wa.gov\/species-habitats\/species\/crotalus-oreganus#living.<\/a><\/p>\n

\t \t \t \t=htmlentities(get_the_title())?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=get_permalink()?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=htmlentities(‘For more stories like this one, be sure to visit https:\/\/www.eastidahonews.com\/ for all of the latest news, community events and more.’)?>&subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20EastIdahoNews” class=”fa-stack jDialog”> \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOKANE, Washington (The Spokesman-Review) \u2014 Somewhere in a rodent burrow or rock crevasse on the eastern side of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-103645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}