Wednesday Walk - Sonoran Desert Museum
Here are a few critters from the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson for this #wednesdaywalk by @tattoodjay
Right as you enter the museum to the right is a reptile building showing many of the snakes throughout the Sonoran desert.
Here is a black tailed rattlesnake who is quite tame and looks out next to the glass. Later it moved and I was able to see its blackish tail right before the rattle.
Here is a Speckled "granite" Rattlesnake. Their habitat is obviously large granite rocks where they are probably picking off pack rats that are making their nests between the rocks.
Here is an Arizona Black Rattlesnake with some interesting looking silver eyes.
People often mistake them with Timber Rattlesnakes but those guys live in forests not the desert.
Here's a brief chuckwala interlude from the snakes lol.
As a kid growing up in AZ one of my main goals was to find and catch one of these. The problem is I found them but they have a way of puffing themselves up in rock cracks so you can't fish them out.
My daughter had fun in the packrat den where they had large scale creepy crawlies. It took a while to peel her out of here but it was a nice cool break from the dry outside desert landscape.
Now for another rattlesnake. The stripes give it the common name of tiger rattlesnake and they tend to be somewhat smaller in size.
Here is a famous character in the desert I've found a few times out in the wild. The Gila monster is one of the few venomous lizards in the world. They are slow, dumb and mostly eat bird eggs so people can easily catch them then get bitten. They have to grind their neurotoxic venom into you with their teeth so if you get bitten they are hard to remove. Also you really have to be bothering them to get them to bite you.
We also did quite a bit of walking outside and didn't even get to see half of the place. Thankfully we got a rare overcast and slightly cool day so no sunburn.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
More soon...
I always prefer to see those critters in the wild, but it's always fun to be able to see them this close in a closed environment. Would love to see on of those gila monsters in nature one day! Thanks for sharing!
I used to get the gila monsters in my yard in AZ little baby ones and somewhat medium sized ones. Never saw a huge one in the wild though. I've stepped over plenty of diamondbacks too over the years, thankfully they warn you with a rattle before coming too close.
Uff! Glad snakes are not evil monsters as they're normally portrayed (well, at least most of them :)!
Only copperheads can be nasty, no warning and quick to strike and very camouflage.
Yeah, some are short tempered. Fortunately all snakes here are the chill kind. :)
Snakes, reptiles have always fascinated me, although I am a little afraid of them.
Now it has been shown that humanoid reptiles really exist! I'm terrified of them!!!
Ah yes maybe the humanoid reptiles were able to successfully make it to the dark side of the moon before the ice age happened. I was hoping to catch a few lizards or even a snake this past trip but they are way too fast.
Great photos. You sometimes watch kids playing and wonder if they even realize they are inside a rattlesnakes mouth lol We went to Saguaro National Park last year and have been to the Desert Museum a few times over the years.
Its a great place I used to go yearly as a kid. Hit and miss seeing the bobcats, cougars and other animals out. I used to remember a cool underground tunnel thing that you could climb up and look at prairie dogs at their level but that is gone now. Most of their river otters have died with just one left. My senior class did a party at Old Tucson after graduation, very touristy for natives.
Cool desert eye detail.