Ep. 79: Venomous Rattlers (feat. Dr. Emily Taylor)

Dr. Emily Taylor is here to teach us all about rattlesnakes - How common are bites? And do they always envenomate people? How can you deter them from your yard? And what can YOU do to get involved in rattlesnake research?

You can find Dr. Emily Taylor on Twitter @SnakeyMama, and to learn more about her and her research check out emilytaylorscience.com. You can learn more about her company at centralcoastsnakeservices.com. If you'd like a signed version of her book California Snakes and How to Find Them, go here.

If you need assistance relocating a rattlesnake, be sure to visit freesnakerelocation.org, and if you want advice on rattlesnake bites, join the Facebook group National Snakebite Support.

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You can find Ashley @TheAngryOlogist on Twitter

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
Welcome to episode seventy nine of GetOut Alive, a bio weekly podcast put
animal tax why they happen, andhow we can avoid them. I'm your
host, Ashley, and before Iintroduce the topic of today's episode, as
a thank you to all of youwho leave five star reviews, I'll be
reading one each episode, and thisweek's review comes from Elijah CM and is
as follows. I absolutely love thispodcast. I started listening two weeks ago.

(00:38):
It's my new go to while working. The information you guys put out
and the guest speakers you have areabsolutely enthralling. It's awesome to be able
to listen to something I, aswell as so many others, are passionate
about, and to hear you guysput it all out in such great taste
is amazing. As an aspiring conservationistslash biologist slash ecologist slash zoologists, have
no idea what path I want totake yet, well, this podcast helps

(00:59):
gives me insight to different fields thatare available. Thank you guys so much
for the content. I look forwardto continue to be a listener. Then
this is a great episode for you, Elijah, because me and today's guests
talk a lot about research that needsto be done in a up and coming
field that is super exciting that Iwish I could go back and go into.
Also, thank you to all ofour patrons at patreon dot com who
wrote in questions for today's guest andyou if you have not already, you

(01:23):
can also join us on Patreon andget bonus episodes, add free episodes,
and do things like ask our expertsquestions. Today's episode is all about rattlesnakes,
how often they bite, how dangerousbites are, and other myths and
facts about them. And months ago, I had someone write into me on
Instagram, ann Alie Nelson, andshe suggested that we talk about rattle lists

(01:46):
rattlesnakes in Texas, and this issomething that we do touch on. So
we get into a lot of differentthings, and we especially talk about venom
too. But I'm so excited foryou all to hear today's guest and about
the very exciting research project that hasgoing on right now that you all can
be a part of. From yourcouch at home, wherever you have access
to the internet, you can bea part of this research. So,

(02:08):
without further ado, let's get intothe interview. My name is Emily Taylor.
My pronouns are she Hers, andI am from I was born originally
in California, but I moved aroundmy whole life, so I don't really
have a home base, to behonest, and I'm currently a professor of
biology at cal Poly in San LuisObispo, California. Nice And how did

(02:32):
you get into reptiles? Were youalways a reptile lover? Did it just
kind of fall on your plate?No? I was not one of those
kids who ran around chasing scaly things. My love for reptiles came a little
bit later in life. When Iwas about twenty years old, I took
a class at UC Berkeley called NaturalHistory of the Vertebrates where every Saturday we
would go out all day either birdwatching or looking for amphibians, or trapping

(02:55):
rodents, or looking for snakes andlizards. And that was definitely my favorite
part. And it was a kingsnake that my professor found under a log
and handed to me. That kindof really was my gateway animal into patology.
And after that I got involved inundergraduate research and then that was it.
You were just hooked hooked on snakesever since twenty five years counting now.

(03:15):
Nice. So what are some ofthe studies that you have done,
like post undergrad my research is mainlyfocused in physiology, so primarily on lizards
like bluebelly lizards called western fence lizards, and then especially on rattlesnakes, and
we've done a lot of work rangingfrom endochronology, so how hormones impact their

(03:36):
physiology, to thermal ecology, solooking at how climate change may impact these
animals' ability to function thermally, andthen more recently hydric physiology. So we're
really interested in how drought in theWestern United States could be impacting lizards and
snakes. But I think one ofthe overarching themes of my work is also
community science and outreach, So wedo a lot of work that involves input

(03:58):
from the public and people help uscollect our data, which is really exciting.
Yeah. So have you always Imean, the focus of today's episode
is rattlesnakes. Have you grown uparound rattlesnakes. Do you have a lot
of like personal experience with them outsideof research or is it just like research
base that you've interacted with them.I never saw ratlesnake as a kid.
My first rattlesnake that I saw wasin college when I was in the class

(04:20):
and we went on a field tripdown to Palm Springs area and I saw
a most beautiful red diamond rattlesnake crossingthe road and I was just in awe
of that animal. And so allmy ratl snake experience, which has become
extremely extensive, has been since then, both studying rattlesnakes for my PhD at
Arizona State University to now going onalmost twenty years of working with them and

(04:40):
studying them at cal Poly. Butit hasn't just been research. I have
a consulting company that helps people coexistwith rattlesnakes peacefully and safely here in the
central California coast. I teach rattlesnakesafety classes all over California. So I
do a lot of work on thekind of human wildlife conflict sides of things
with rattlesnakes in addition to the researchthat I do, and I mean,
we also have to talk about yournew book that as we're recording this came

(05:02):
out a few days ago. Soplease tell us about your new book.
Thank you. I'm so excited.I just had my book launch party yesterday
and it was awesome. I gavea talk on the secret lives of snakes
associated with my book, California Snakesand How to Find Them. So it
is a not really a field guide. There are accounts of each species,
but instead of having just scientific informationand like scale counts and ranges, it's

(05:28):
more stories about each snake and beautifulphotographs that my colleagues have taken and graciously
allowed me to use in their book. So it's really good for someone who
is becoming interested in snake hunting.So maybe for like a teenager or someone
visiting the state, or even anexperienced herpetologists will like it because of the
beautiful photos and the funny stories,and so it's kind of an ode to
snakes and how to find them inthe wild. I'll tell you something,

(05:48):
there's a lot of gatekeeping and herpetologywhere someone who's interested in learning how to
find snakes will ask someone can theycome with them? Or where do they
go to find them? And peoplerightfully won't tell them where to go to
find snakes because if you give awayyour secret spots, they might get ruined
by somebody, whether it's on purposeor not. So people have to learn
on their own. And the bookis just full of how to's, how

(06:10):
to find snakes by flipping pieces oftin, by hiking, by road cruising
at night, a lot of discussionof the ethics of should we pick up
snakes or not? And the shortanswer is sometimes, but be judicious about
it. Right. We love tohold snakes in our hands so that we
can see them up close, andthat's something I'll never argue with. But
sometimes if we actually just let themgo about their business, we can see
really really cool things happening. Andso that's what the book is about.

(06:31):
And it has counts of over fiftysnakes in California, including some introduced ones,
but mostly our wonderful native snakes,and it's just a big celebration of
snakes. Have you yourself ever beenbitten by a rattlesnake in your line of
research? Yes, I have.I was bitten when I was a graduate
student in the year two thousand,about two years after I started working with

(06:54):
ratile snakes, and it was devastating. Not so much medically. I had
all rail snake bites or emergencies,but I had a relatively low severity bite
and I recovered after one night inICEEU and fifteen viiles of anti venom,
which is pretty basic bite. Butmy ego has never recovered. I was

(07:14):
one of the ral snake biologists whowas a female, and of course I
got bitten right away. I'm justkidding. My ego has definitely recovered.
But what happened was it actually reallyimpacted me because it changed the way that
I see ratl snakes, you know, and the snake was defending itself I
was working with in the lab.It was a bite to the hand.
I spent all day every day handlingrail snakes to get blood samples and et
cetera. And I made a mistake. It's always a mistake of the person

(07:39):
really, because the snake is justdefending itself. What it did was it
really dictated to me new methods forsnake safety. And so that's why I
teach snake safety classes to construction workers, military personnel, biologists, you know,
community members all over California. Atnow is how to safely, like
uber, safely catch that ratle snakeand remove it from because it turns out

(08:01):
that killing rattlesnakes is actually really dangeroustoo. We'll get bitten a lot when
I try to kill them. SoI have learned now, partly because of
the mistakes I made when I wasa young young adult, how to be
exceptionally safe. And that's something I'mreally proud of and that I really enjoy
spreading around our beautiful state of California. Nice. So, speaking of the
snakes in California and the snakes inUS as a whole, so can we

(08:24):
break down the different species of rattlesnakeswe have in the US, and then
how many of those are venomous?Are they all venomous? How many venomous
snakes do we have going on inCalifornia and the US as a whole.
That was a lot to throw atyou, But I might love talking about
venomus snakes. This is what Ido, so I'm happy to answer your
question. So taxonomists argue a lotabout what's the species versus a subspecies,

(08:45):
So I'll could you kind of ageneral answer, there's depending on your philosophy
of species, there's about twenty ormaybe a few more species of rettlesnakes in
the United States, since seven ofthose occur in California, and then there's
a few more additional venomous snakes,So there's a two species of copperhead and
two species of cotton mouths or watermoccasins, those are the same thing,
and then a few species of coralsnakes. So those comprise all the venomous

(09:07):
snakes, maybe about thirty or soin the United States. Cool. So
I guess to backtrack a little bittoo to stuff that you're working on,
because I don't want to get pastthis. Can you tell people a little
bit about the work that you werejust doing before this week that we're recording
and where people can tune in tothat work that you were doing, Ashley,

(09:28):
I am so excited. This issomething I have been building up to
for so long and I just can'tbelieve that it's happening. So people can
go to retlcam dot org, whichis the website for project ratlecam, which
is our major community science project withlive streaming on rattlesnake dens. And so
we're using this as an opportunity tolearn about what snakes do when you don't

(09:48):
walk up to them and bother them. Right, Their behavior changes when they're
scared of people walking up to them. So we can actually study what rattlesnakes
do in these communal dens with aybask out in the front of them.
The pregnant females will stay there andthey'll have their babies this summer and we
can watch them taking care of theirbabies, which is something really interesting that
rattlesnakes do. A lot of peopledon't know that, and the kind of

(10:09):
history of this, the brief historyis that we put these cameras, these
live streaming cameras. The first everone's on snake dens outside of a small
snake den and communal nest. It'scalled a rookery in California three years ago.
I've been watching that ever since.It streams live to YouTube. People
who are watching on YouTube can askthe controller, hey, can you pan

(10:30):
or zoom that camera in? Becauseit's not just a static camera. We
can control it and we can followanimals around, so the person really feels
like they're they're watching and part ofit with the animals. And we just
recently last week in Colorado went outand installed a really high tech, advanced
new live streaming camera system and aprairie rattlesnake mega den. And a mega

(10:50):
den is a word that we developedso we can say it's whatever we want
to say, but it's defined asa huge den, one that's full of
dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousandsof individuals. And so pretty soon here
we're just optimizing the settings. Butany day now, sometime in mid May
twenty twenty four, we are goingto make it live on redelcam dot org

(11:11):
where people can just watch twenty fourhours a day. It has infrared at
night, so we can see what'svisiting the dens at night, wo we
can see what the snakes are doingall the time, and just for a
sneak peek. We were there lastweek for five days. This is in
high elevation northern Colorado, and wegot snowed out two of the days,
but on the other three days thatthe snakes were out because it was sunny,

(11:33):
which is crazy, there's like snowall around them, but they're out
in the sun. We saw justpiles of rattlesnakes and then even bigger piles
of western terrestrial garter snakes that hibernatewith the rettlesnakes, and we noticed some
really interesting social behaviors between the twospecies that we haven't really been able to
see before, so it's just ahint of what we'll be able to do
with this live stream. Nice.Yeah. So I have patrons that wrote

(11:54):
in questions from patreon dot com,and one of them was like, I
don't have a question, but I'mso excited for this live cam, Like
this is gonna be great. Sopeople are into it, and I before
we start recording, we were talkingabout the shirt that I'm wearing, which
has snakes on it, and Iforgot to tell you I have a rattlesnake
tattoo that I got specifically, Imean, I have a whole sleeve of
animals that people don't really like,so I got a rattlesnake tattoo because I

(12:15):
was like, they're great mothers andthere's so many reasons to like them.
But I feel like the rattlesnakes makegreat moms, and like they often have
young that like follow them around stuff. This is supposed to be like a
timber rattlesnake, So I'm not sureif that's true for all rattlesnakes, But
that's like my little tidbit of like, hey, I know that you might
not like them, but here's afew reasons to like them. So I
also use any excuse I can getto talk about them. Well, that's

(12:35):
really awesome and it's intuitive. Soa couple things from that that you'll love.
Most of the research that has beendone on young following the adults to
their dens was done on timber rattlesnakes, so you're right on there with the
species choice. Beautiful tattoo by theway, thanks. And the second thing
is that you basically just propose ahypothesis that telling people that rattlesnakes take care

(12:58):
of their babies and they had thesesocial systems can actually change people's minds about
rattlesnakes. And we tested that hypothesisin a study. It was just published
a couple weeks ago in plus oneand sure enough it's true. So people,
especially women, react really strongly tothat, and it can improve the
perception of retlesnakes. We also lookedat ecosystem services, so telling people that
rettle snakes help control rodent populations helpprevent the spread of disease that was actually

(13:22):
even more effective, but primarily amonglike older people and men. So it's
just an interesting study because people canread it and find out what the best
strategies for outreach are it depends onwho you're talking to. Yeah, yeah,
to customize it, right, whichis why podcasts are great because we
can lay out so many facts thatwill appeal to so many different people.
That's right. So speaking of that, one of our patrons, Tarn,

(13:45):
actually had a great question, whichis, what are some common misconceptions about
rattlesnakes? How much time do youhave? I know that could be the
whole episode, honestly, yeah,it really could be. I do a
talk sometimes called Mythbusting Rettlesnakes, andit's like a whole hour and a half
long just going through ralsnake myths becauseI like to say that everything you've heard
about rattlesnakes is not true. There'susually some sort of tiny grain of truth,

(14:07):
but then it's blown out of proportionand the majority of it's not true.
So the most common myth, whichis an obvious one, is that
ral snakes want to bite people ordogs. They don't. They want to
use their venom for their own prey, and they are only ever dividing biting
to defend themselves. So the ideaof calling rattlesnakes aggressive is really just a
misnomer. They are defensive and understandingthat you and your podcast do a good

(14:31):
job of saying, even though wesay animal attacks, many of these attacks
are defensive attacks. Of course,so that's really true of rattlesnakes. They
don't actually attack people, They defendthemselves. That's one the most widespread myth
about rattlesnakes is that the babies aremore dangerous than the adults. And this
myth comes in many forms, everythingfrom they can't control their venom, or
they interject more venom, or they'remore likely to bite, or etc.

(14:54):
Etc. None of that's true.So baby ral snakes can control their venom,
they do not inject as much ofit as adults, and the grain
of truth is that their venom canbe more toxic drop per drop, but
that's completely irrelevant when the adults injectso much more venom. So, in
fact, the snake bite severity scores, which is like a medical conglomerate score

(15:15):
of how severe the bite was,is higher for adult snakes than baby snakes.
I'll do one more myth just inthe nature of time, and that
one is that there's a myth goingaround now that rattlesnakes have started to evolve
to not rattle or to lose theirrattle comes in both of those flavors,
and that's not true either. Sothe idea here goes that, oh,

(15:39):
people are going to kill ratle snakeswhen they see them. So if a
rattle snake is less likely to rattle, then it doesn't get killed and it
passes on the genes for not rattlingto its babies, whereas the ones that
rattle give themselves a way they getkilled. So that's a very interesting hypothesis,
really hard to test, but wehave no evidence for it. And
you get this confirmation bias where someonehas heard that and then they see a
rat snake that doesn't rattle, whichspoiler, rattlesnakes usually don't rattle. They

(16:03):
just don't. So if you seeone that doesn't rattle, you're like,
oh, look see they're losing theirability to rattle, and it's just not
true. Yeah, we have noevidence for that. Rattlesnakes do not want
to draw attention to themselves. Theirfirst line of defense is camouflage, and
they only are going to rattle ifthey feel like you've invaded their space.
So there you have it. Thoseare some common myths that we can bust
right away. Yeah, that wasperfect because the next question was from Robin

(16:26):
who asked which rattlesnake rattles the loudest, and then I added on to it
and said, why do they rattle? Yeah, really good question. So
I don't know the first answer,which was which one rattles the loudest.
I don't think anyone has ever studiedthat. That would be a really cool
like Master's thesis. I would suggestthat it's probably gonna be one of the
bigger rattlesnakes. So the bigger thesnake, the bigger the rattle, and

(16:47):
the louder the noise. So somethinglike a Western diamondback rattlesnake and Eastern diamondback
rattlesnake, timber rattlesnake, those arethe three biggest ones that occur in the
United States. And rattlesnake that hasa high body temperature and that is very
very threatened, we'll have a veryloud buzz of a rattle. Tiny little
rattlesnakes have this like high pitch Zbecause of their rattles are so small.

(17:08):
And it's actually crazy because some olderpeople who've lost that frequency can't hear them
rattle. Oh boy, I knowanyway, So rattlesnakes rattle as a warning.
Rattlesnakes rattle when they are scared,when they feel threatened because they see
us or predators or livestock or dogsthat are about to step on them or
sniffing them as threats. They seethese big, giant, you know,

(17:30):
warm blooded animals coming at them,in our case, hairless apes coming at
them as something that is going tokill them. And you know, rightfully
so because oftentimes that does happen.So the rattle is a sign that the
rattlesnake is scared. There's actually areally interesting thing that happened in an outreach
event that my friend attended recently wherethey were talking to kids about rattlesnakes and

(17:51):
they had a live rattlesnake. Itwas rattling away. One of the kids
in the audience looked at that rattlesnakevery thoughtfully and pensively and said, you
know, that rattle sound is notone of forrociousness. It's the sound of
the rattlesnakes screaming. Oh my god, I get like shivers whenever I hear
that. Because I think people don'tsee it that way. People see it
as like a sign of aggression,when really it's just a terrified rattlesnake very

(18:12):
nicely telling you to back away andthen there'll be no problems. Yeah.
Oh wow, that is a reallysmart little kid. Jeez. I know
I want like that kid to cometo college and be my student. Yeah
righth yeah, my gosh. AndI think this is a good point to
talk about too. So here inNew England we have milk snakes and many

(18:33):
people don't know that milk snakes arenot venomous, but they do rattle as
like a psych out for getting youto stay away from them. So are
there other snakes out there that mimicthat rattle without having the venom to back
it up. This is such agood question actually, because people argue a
lot about whether we can actually callthat behavior mimicry. So let me explain.
So, all snakes, or mostsnakes will shake their tail when they're

(18:56):
stressed out, and so this goesback evolutionary long before the split between all
these other species of snakes and ratlsnakes. In other words, the shaking
of the tail when a snake isstressed is basal, and then the lineage
that led to rattlesnakes just evolved thismorocca on the end of it that could
make a lot of noise. Soall these snakes do it when they're stressed.

(19:17):
So the question is does that meanit's a mimic. Probably not,
because it evolved beforehand. At thesame time, there are some species,
especially ones that look a lot likerattlesnakes, Like out here are gopher snakes
that shake their tail in the brushand also spread their head wide to make
it look more triangular shaped. Theyeven have this special tissue inside their throat

(19:37):
that can cause them to make aloud, hissing noise that sounds kind of
like a rattle. So those snakesare definitely rattlesnake mimics that have benefited over
evolutionary time by a hawk or maybea badger or something seeing them and thinking
that's not worth it today to aspicy noodle. Today, I'm gonna avoid
that spicy meal and maybe go andso they benefited that way. Unfortunately,
it also means that they sometimes areper secuted more by people. People see

(20:00):
a snake that's shaking its tail,I think rattlesnake, but really it's the
presence or absence of the rattle onthe tail that indicates whether it's a rattlesnake
or not not the shaking of thetail gotcha very cool. So besides the
rattle, obviously rattlesnakes have venom toback up their bite. So can we
talk a bit about what is thepurpose of venom? And also is venom

(20:23):
the same in every venomous snake ordoes it differ by snake. Sure,
so venom evolved to kill and maybetenderize prey depending on the species. So
there are many, many species ofvenomous snakes throughout the world and a huge
diversity of venoms. And I willtalk a little bit about just about the
diversity even within rattlesnakes in the UnitedStates, which have been heavily studied.

(20:47):
So rattlesnake venom tends to consist primarilyof toxins, multiple different types of proteins
that will kill prey by, forexample, interfering with blood coagulation or blood
clotting, so that this mass doseof venom into something like a mouse causes
it to kind of bleed to deathimmediately. There's also some in some populations
of ral snakes, there's some neurotoxinsthat will interfere with the ability of that

(21:08):
rodent to be able to breathe,and it will suffocate lots of different things
that are in these snake venoms.Also, ral snake venoms have these myotoxins
which basically start to kind of breakdown muscle. And whether or not that's
actually helping to kind of pre digestthe food or to prevent this giant meal
the snake eventually swallows from kind ofrotting inside the belly, we don't really

(21:30):
know for sure, but we knowthat it's all contributing to what they're eating.
And then secondarily, the venom isused for defense. So the reason
that rat snake venom is so toxic, and this is probably something that's true
for snakes around the world because it'slike way more toxic than it needs to
be to kill like a lab mouse, is that actually in the wild,

(21:51):
the prey that have co evolved withthe rettlesnakes and so a lot of prey
actually have some sort of resistance torettlesnake venoms. So we should stop short
of calling it immune, but wecan say resistance. Sometimes they may survive
a bite, and so through naturalselection, if you have a prey that
is largely resistant to the real snakevenom, it will survive a bite,
and it will pass on its genesfor resistance to its offspring, and then

(22:12):
through random mutation, a retl snakedevelops a more toxic venom, and then
that rattle snake is able to killand get more food and so on.
So you get this co evolutionary armsrace where the venom gets more toxic as
the prey becomes more resistant. Andthat's why people who did not co evolve
with rettle snakes and therefore do nothave resistance are suffer so dramatically when they

(22:33):
are invenomated by a red snake.And I'm sure're going to talk about snake
bites to people later, so I'llhold off on that, but for now.
Yeah, even within just rettlesnakes inCalifornia as an example, the venom
varies dramatically among snakes, by species, among populations, among individuals within that
population, and even within an individualas it ages, the venom changes dramatically,

(22:55):
so you can't really make You canmake generalizations, but you can't make
specific predictions based on any one partof the venom. It's really cool This
whole field I've been discussing is calledvenom ecology, somewhat new field. I
know. It's just amazing, isn'tit. I really want to get into
it. Like I don't have reallyany background in hormones or anything like that,
but like the just studying venom soundsso cool to me. I would

(23:15):
love to do that. It's soneat. It's one of the things that
I think about sometimes where I'm like, if I could go back to grad
school, maybe it would have beencool to study venom. I'm like,
no, I like the path Itook, but that would have been really
cool. I do have some studiesthat we've done with venom. It's mostly
been with colleagues of mine study venomwhere we've collaborated together, but I'm not
a venom scientist per se myself.Yeah, we are going to get into

(23:40):
later in this conversation about like whatyou should do if you're bitten by a
venomous snake, because I know that'sa question so many people have for us.
So continuing on this little bit,Kim, one of our patrons asked,
is there any animal that is immuneto a rattlesnake bite which you kind
of just answered, but could youname some of those animals that are like
in that arms with rattlesnakes against theirvenom. I love this question so much

(24:03):
because it really shows that we arejust starting to research this. When I
say we, it's the royal we, I'm not researching what my colleagues are.
So this has all been really newscience, this field of venom ecology
to be able to understand that certainprey species of rettlesnakes and also predators of
retle snakes who have co evolved withthem for millions of years, have developed
types of resistance, even in thesense that we could call it immunity.

(24:26):
Immunity implies like fully being fully immune, which is probably not usually the case.
I'm not gonna say never, buthere's a few examples of animals that
are maybe highly resistant to rattlesnake venomwho could survive a bite. Predators of
rettlesnakes, like the Californic kingsnake,are highly resistant to rettlesnake venom. Oh,
I know, it's so cool.So there's been just a couple of

(24:48):
studies showing that, and then we'veall many of us have observed it,
you know, I've seen rettlesnakes biteking snakes and they're tolly fine. But
there's a currently there's a graduate studentwho is really tackling this to study howt
works other predators like possums and potentiallybadgers, although I don't think people have
actually studied whether badgers are resistant becauseyou have to get a blip sample from
a badger, which is really noteasy, but anyway, so whereas other

(25:15):
predators like hawks and owls are notresistant, and so they will actually just
rip the head off of the rattlesnakebefore they take the body away to eat
it, showing that they kind ofknow where the spicy end is and then
some prey. So a lot ofthe work has been done on California ground
squirrels and Northern Pacific rattlesnakes showing thatthere's a high resistance from Californic ground squirrels.
Those little ground squirrels are resistant torat snake bites. It means that

(25:37):
an adult might survive a bite,not always, but it might survive,
but only to the venoms of therattlesnakes from their population. So if you
inject them with venom from a populationelsewhere in California. They're not resistant to
those, so it really shows thatcoevolution. Let's see what else can I
think of. I know that there'sa number of studies ongoing on other prey
items like wood rats and other animals, showing that it seems to be really

(26:00):
common that there is resistance to thesnakes the snake predator's venom in many many
prey. It's just a really earlyburgeoning area of study. So anyone out
there who is interested in venom andwho wants to go to grad school should
consider looking into the labs of someof these venom scientists because there's so much
left to do. Yeah. Oh, that's so exciting. I love when

(26:21):
I talk to biologists and they're like, actually, no one studied this,
because I'm like, get out thereand do it, please, someone do
it. Yeah, yep. SoI guess a question I have based off
of that is do you know howanti venom is made? And is anyone
looking at these animals as a wayto like help humans become more resistant to
rattlesnake venom. So I can tellyou the answer to the first question.

(26:42):
The second one is more difficult becauseI am not a specialist in the biomedical
side of it. I certainly canprovide some general answers to some of your
questions about the biomedical aspect, butI'm more of an expert on the rattlesnake
biology itself. So anti venom wouldwhich is just such an amazing, amazing

(27:03):
medicine, is produced by injecting venomsfrom snakes that are venomous obviously into large
animals like horses or sheep, andso don't worry, it's not like they
inject a ton of the venom.It's a tiny amount of venom. And
then those large animals are not reallyaffected by that venom because they're huge,
but their immune systems recognize those proteinsand produce antibodies against those and these animals

(27:26):
immune systems are so much more advancedthan any lab technology we currently have at
being able to produce any bodies againstall of those proteins and that complex cocktail
that is a venom. And thenafter they have produced as antibodies, the
scientists will draw the blood from them, purify it, and basically do some
extra steps, and then that isanti venom. And so it's anti venom

(27:47):
is going to be kept usually formost including rettlesnake anti venoms, which there's
two kinds in the United States available, will be kept refrigerated at hospitals and
is delivered via IV by an erphysician. So this is not something that
people can buy and carry around withthem on a backpacking trip or anything like
that. So it's highly effective.The red anti venoms in the United States

(28:08):
will cure almost any red snake biteif the person gets treatment really soon.
And in addition, I should saythey're not just for rattlesnakes. So all
pit vipers in North America, whichincludes the rettlesnakes, the copper heads,
and the cotton mouth all of theirvenoms are used multiple species of retle snakes,
and then those cotton mouths and copperheads are all used, and so
the anti venom is effective against allbites from those organisms. Oh cool,

(28:32):
that's awesome. Yeah. This makesme think of all the people who have
venomous snakes from other parts of theworld, and I always wonder, like,
if you have I don't know,like a black mamba or something like
how do you know I don't knowif you know the answer this question,
but like, if you have avenomous snake from another part of the world.
Have you got to like contact yourhospital and like make sure they have
the anti venom or you just likegotta hope you don't get bit because there's

(28:56):
nothing similar to that venom around.Yeah, so in most states, having
exotic venomous snakes is illegal, butit certainly is legal in some states,
and furthermore, some people just keepthese snakes illegally. Is unfortunately a growing
problem because what usually happens is that, especially with the people who are keeping
them illegally, they're not very likelyto be doing the responsible thing, which

(29:18):
is actually stocking and keeping and maintainingtheir own supply of anti venom. That's
what zoos do, and zoos keepanti venom in case one of their reptile
keepers is in'tvenomated in an accent,and so the problem arises that if someone
is invenomated by their pet cobra orblack mamba, like you said, then
oftentimes they will go to the hospitaland they'll immediately begin searching the physicians for

(29:38):
anti venom anywhere in the country thatcan be flown in for that person,
and of course a lot of timesit comes from the zoos, and then
that puts the zoo keepers at riskbecause you're taking the anti venom away from
the responsible parties of the zoos.So it is a really big problem.
People definitely should not be keeping thoseanimals unless they have the proper permits and
are following the proper procedures of beingresponsible for their own medical care for sure.

(30:00):
Yeah. Hell yeah. So movingback towards wild snakes, So one
of our patrons, John asked,I know that venom producing creatures can and
often do limit the amount of venominjected due to the sheer amount of energy
it takes to produce the venom.So how often do quote dry bites occur
where no venom is injected. Yeah, this is an awesome question too.
So figuring out how many times drybites occur in nature is really hard,

(30:25):
yep, right, because I mean, how do you study that? Just
think about it. So there's beenestimates that have ranged, you know,
from just a few Mainly it's it'spretty rare a few percent of cases in
predatory bytes because the snake, especiallysomething like a rel snake, it just
sits there in weights, and it'sso rare for something like a rodent to
run by. They're gonna make surethey envenomate that rodent, they're not going
to try to, you know,hedge their bets. So dry bites are

(30:48):
pretty rare in nature for predation.We think they're a little more common in
defensive bytes, like to people's ankles. So about studies have shown across snakes
that are about ten ten percent ofvenomous snake bites in the United States are
dry bites. And there's a lotof misinformation about what a dry bite is.
A dry bite is defined as thefangs have penetrated the skin and then

(31:11):
but there's no venom, so literallyyou're having no reaction to the venom,
no swelling, no effects on theblood, nothing. So some people say
that a mild and venomation is adry bite without swelling, et cetera,
and that's not true. So onething about the idea of the venom is
that there's been one study on howmuch energy it costs on rettlesnakes to produce

(31:32):
their venom, and it was fascinatingbecause on the one hand, they showed
that it actually takes surprisingly little energyto make that venom. However, however,
your patron is absolutely correct in thesense that the venom is highly valuable
because if they were to expend allof their venom, then they wouldn't have
it anymore for a few days,and that could result in lost opportunity.

(31:52):
So a prey item could come byand they wouldn't be able to kill it
because they didn't have enough venom,and then that would be a major energetic
cost. Yeah. Right, Sorattlesnakes and other snakes do meter their venom.
They bite, and they only injectpart of their venom. This is
again true of baby rattlesnakes too,and if they were to bite over and
over again in succession, then usuallyeach bite would have less and less and

(32:14):
less venom and it would kind ofpeter down to being a very small amount.
But the only way to have arat snake completely get rid of all
of its venom is when people aremilking them and they kind of squeeze the
venom glands and really just get itall out naturally, That probably wouldn't quite
happen, and then it just takesa couple of weeks for the snake to
regenerate full venom stores after that.Yeah, and how often did they have

(32:35):
amas? This probably depends on thosespecies, but like how often did they
have to eat. You're gonna beshocked by this answer. So it definitely
depends on species. But when you'relooking at rattlesnakes, which are low energy
specialists. This is actually a studythat one of my graduate students, Haley
Krow, did for her master's thesisat cal Poly. She looked at these
rattlesnakes with their incredibly low metabolic ratesand used data from temperature data logger that

(33:00):
we had in rattlesnakes here in centralCalifornia and their metabolic rates based on their
mass and to just plug and shrug, you can get this estimate of how
much they need. And we didit in terms of California ground squirrels,
so their main prey. We hadto estimate how many calories were in a
California ground squirrel. It was afun, fun story, never mind on
that. And then so the crazyanswer is that it's about one per year.

(33:23):
Ground squirrel is all they need.Now there's a caveat to that,
because that's just to fuel their basalmetabolism. You know, if rattlesnakes are
crawling around a lot, or especiallyfemale rattlesnakes that need to make babies,
which is incredibly energetically expensive. Thatcosts a lot more, but just a
really small amount is all they need. Now they will eat more, right,
and they'll get fatter and they'll grow. But right now, this summer,

(33:45):
we're actually doing an interdisciplinary study withsome statistics students and faculties at cal
Poly where we're going to be modelingrattlesnake energetic needs through the entire United States,
using data sets from all of mycolleagues, and looking at how climate
change will impact rattlesnake energy budget.It's which I'm really excited about. That's
so exciting. It's great that there'sso much good research to dude being done.

(34:05):
That's awesome. It's time for aquick ad break, but once we
come back, we'll talk more aboutrattlesnakes, doctor Taylor. Okay, So,
Macie, one of our patrons asked, how do rattlesnake bites affect animals,
more specifically dogs? And I didn'tknow this existed, but what does
the rattlesnake vaccine do for dogs?Well, rattlesnake bites to dogs and also

(34:28):
cats and livestock, especially small livestock. It is a medical emergency. And
that's because just like us humans.You know, dogs and cats did not
evolve with rattlesnakes. I mean sometimesthey might actually have some level of partial
resistance because of their ancestry, youknow, with like wolves and wildcats that
may have evolved eating ratl snakes,but they're definitely not resistant. And there's

(34:50):
a lot of deaths due to snakebite. A lot more dogs get bit
in the United States every year byrattlesnakes than people do. Something about one
thousand or so rattlesnake bites out ofeight thousand total venomous snake bites in the
United States to people, and there'sprobably like thirty thousand at least railshack bights
to dogs. Yeah, rail snakesare copper heads, cotton mouth I should
say. Lots of dogs are bitten, wow, and so they swell up.

(35:14):
It's incredibly painful. People should iftheir dog gets bitten, they should
immediately remove the collar to avoid problemswith swelling around the neck, and they
need to rush the dog to theemergency veterinarian who has anti venom available just
like our just like us. It'sa different brand, but it's the same
sort of thing, and the antivenom is pretty effective, so most dogs
who can get treatment right away,their lives can be saved. But I

(35:34):
will say that the treatment has changeda lot in recent years based on studies
that people have done. So there'sbeen actual studies showing what works and what
doesn't work in terms of treating dogsand cats, and a lot of veterinarians
out there went to school before someof these studies were done, and so
some of them may actually not knowsome of the current methods. And we
see that there's a lot of drugsthat are given, like steroids and benadryl,

(35:58):
which are actually not appropriate it forsnake bite because the swelling that happens
for snake bite is not mediated viahistamine for example, that venadryl would help.
And so in addition, there's thisvaccine which there's no evidence that it
works, so people should not getthe real snake vaccine. There's actually evidence
that it can actually sensitize your dogso that if it did get bitten after

(36:20):
it had the vaccine, they canhave an allergic reaction. So all this
information that I just told you Ilearned from the nonprofit National Snake Bite Support
and I would strongly recommend that you'relisteners who are interested in snake bite prevention,
treatment, et cetera. Join theFacebook group called National Snake Bite Support
because it's not just any old Facebookgroup, it's a nonprofit. And the

(36:40):
reason we're on Facebook is because theycan link easily to people. So if
someone is bitten, or if theirdog is bitten, they can post on
there and right away be connected withthese medical or veterinary toxicologists who will kind
of cut through the bs and saythis is exactly what you should and shouldn't
do, which is basically, don'tdo anything. Don't do anything. Don't
do it. No tourniqueits no cuttingand sucking, nothing, just go to

(37:01):
doctor. I'm getting ahead of myself. This was supposed to be a pets
and I'm talking about people. That'sokay, So I will hold off and
we can talk about that when thetime comes. Perfect. Yeah, we
have a little bit more in animals. So Patty asked, I've heard that
when some venomous snakes bite an animaland then that animal dies, if another
animal comes to scavenge on the carcass, they may also get affected by the
venom. Is that true and isit true of rattlesnakes. Okay, So

(37:24):
I don't know the answer to thisquestion. I have never heard of that,
and so I don't want to sayit's not true because I could be
wrong. I do want to saythat to me, at least, when
it comes to rattlesnakes, it soundslike it sounds improbable, and I will
say I'll explain my reasoning at least, and then we can look and see
if that's true other snakes too.So a venom has to be injected,

(37:45):
whereas a poison has to be ingested. And this venoms are made of proteins
that our stomach would break down,or an animal stomach would break down.
So if let's say that an animalgets injected with venom and it dies,
and before the rattle snake eat it, some hot comes and picks up the
mouse and eats it. That mousegoes into its stomach where those venom proteins
get digested. So, in otherwords, the venom being ingested can't hurt

(38:08):
the prey. It would have tobe injected into the bloodstream. You can't
hurt the predator. Sorry, Sothat's why I think it could be improbable.
Now, whether there's an exception tothis. I don't know, so
I think it'd be really interesting tolook into that. Yeah, so John
once again asked, is it oftenthat animals as big as like a bison
or something like a grizzly might getkilled by in venomation? So obviously they
wouldn't be the likely target for beingeaten by a snake, but like if

(38:31):
they were to get bitten, wewere talking kind of about like horses and
stuff like that. They're so big, But could venom kill something like a
bison or a grizzly. This isa good, great question. There's not
a lot of data on it,again because you know, you can't it's
unethical. You can't go out andjust inject these animals with venom to see
what happens. So a lot ofit is based on just observations over the
past, which suggests that no,it's not very likely that these large animals

(38:53):
would die from a snake bite.It's probably true that bison were regularly and
venomated right as they walked through thegrasslands of North America. There's probably ral
snakes sitting there. But these animalsare so large that the venom probably had
this solution effect. Even in ahorse, by the way, and this
is a very broad generalization. Ifa horse is bitten on its belly or

(39:15):
maybe its leg or something like that, it's gonna swell and be painful,
but the horse will very very likelysurvive that. The problems with horses come
when the horse is bitten on thenose, like if they're sniffing or grazing
and they're bitten, and that's becausethe swelling will block the horse's nostrils,
and horses cannot breathe through their mouths, so if their nostrils are blocked,
then they suffocate. So treatment fora snake bite and a horse is literally

(39:37):
to shove a little hose up itsnostril to prop it open so that it
continued to breathe until the venom exitsthe body. So yeah, I think
that in venomations to large animals mayhappen, for example, when the snake
is defending itself from trying to bebeing eaten by a mountain lion or bear,
or when it's being stepped on bya large hooved animal, but they

(39:57):
probably just swell up and then getover because of their large size and the
dilution of the venom. Yeah.Well, then let's just get right into
what happens when people get bit So, if you're a person and you get
bit by a snake, what's thething to do. There's so much misinformation
out there, and there's developing misinformation, and there's debunked misinformation. So the
good news is that all of yourlisteners really just need to remember that they

(40:20):
just need to call name on oneif someone is bitten by a retl snake.
On the hand, they should takeoff any rings or watches or constructive
jewelry that could become a problem whenthe swelling commences, and then they should
call name on one and get anambulance or even a metavac helicopter if they're
out somewhere far away, to getto the hospital right Away's and that's it.
That's literally it for rattlesnake bites.Specifically, first aid on the way

(40:45):
to the hospital, the limb shouldbe kept at heart level, not below
heart level like used to be recommended. At heart level, and then scientists
recommend that after being treated with antivenom and during recovery, that the limb
be to reduce the swelling because thatseems to benefit the outcomes of these bites.

(41:05):
But in terms of just getting medicalcare, the only medical care is
anti venom and the person should neverconsider things they may have heard like tourniquets
or cutting and sucking or snake bitesuction kits. Throw those in the garbage.
They don't work, they make itworse, they cause inflammation. And
then there's a new one that islike developing and going around that I'm really

(41:28):
trying to get out ahead of andsay no, this is not true,
which is electric shock. What Sopeople now believe that if they're envenomated that
they can either tase themselves or worse, hook themselves up to their car battery
and how that somehow would stop thevenom. But it doesn't work. There's
a case study, a medical casestudy of someone who has bit in the

(41:49):
face by a retl snake. Hewas teasing or trying to kiss his pet
retal snake and then he had hisfriend warning cringe. He had his friend
attached his lip via jumper cables tothe car and turned on the car to
shock him, and so he wentto the hospital with not only a severe
and venomation to the face, butalso with severe burns. So don't do

(42:10):
any of those things just go tothe hospital. Yeah, I mean,
in the time it would take youto hook up your car to your lip,
I think you could call nine oneone and probably get the ambulance there
faster than trying something out like that. I think so too, and I
think it's worth mentioning. I mean, you know, we make fun of
these sort of situations, but honestly, a rattlesnake of venomation is a very

(42:30):
serious medical problem, and people panicand people freak out when it happens,
and it's especially scary when it happens, which it so often does out in
nature. You know, someone stepson them on a trail and then they're
panicking what should I do? Orif they don't have cell service, what
do I do? And by theway, the answer to that is if
you don't have cell service, manyof the newer cell phones smartphones actually have

(42:51):
an SOS built in, so youcan learn how to use that before you
go out in the wild, sothat anywhere you are, even if you
don't have a cell signal, youcan send this SOS message out to get
help. But if you don't havethat, then there are satellite GPSS that
you can like a spot GPS thatyou can keep with you to be able
to get that message out, becauseif you're bitten far from a trailhead in
a remote area, you're probably notgonna be able to make it back on

(43:14):
your own, either due to thepain or the disorientation that can come from
snake bite. And it's really keythat people just get to the hospital as
quick as possible redl Snake bites don'tresult in the whole like being uc on
TV where someone is bitten and theytake two steps and then they fall over
dead. That's not how it works. It would be a long, slow
process that could lead to death ifnot treated, or could lead to more

(43:34):
likely somebody recovering but undergoing severe severepain and maybe even disability from the effects
of the venom on the tissue ofthe venomated finger, for example, things
like amputation or just not full functiongain. So getting to the hospital really
quickly is more just to prevent anyof those things happening. The vast majority
of people who get to the hospitaland get anti venom right away, like

(43:55):
for example, within a few hours, fully recover. Wow. That's awesome.
Yeah, I mean, I guessto break it down a little bit,
how many people are bitten in theUS by venomous snakes each year,
and then how many people die fromthose bites. There's around eight thousand venomous
snake bites per year in the UnitedStates, about a thousand of those are
from rettlesnakes, and about five peopleon average it usually range from about three

(44:16):
to twelve every year die and mostof those are from rattlesnakes, not copperheads,
so that the most severe bites arefrom rel snakes. It's the least
severe, although still medical emergencies arefrom copperheads, which are over in the
eastern US and Midwest. And Ishould say that of those five people,
usually several of them at least didn'tget medical care so for various reasons.

(44:38):
Either they were too far away fromit to get it in time, or
they refused it for religious or financialor other reasons, or you know,
again, there's just other reasons.And so with this anti venom, it's
just very very rare somebody would die. Yeah, that's great to hear,
you know, I want to saysomething about that. Actually, this is
actually really important. I think thatyou know your listeners will like this.

(44:59):
So anti venom was developed in thenineteen fifties, and so nowadays that we
have this rattlesnake bite is seldom fatal. But I want you to everyone to
think about, like their grandparents beforethe fifties, or great grandparents or whatever,
snake bite was a very different threatback then. Yeah, And so
when you think about people's attitudes towardssnakes and how much they hate rattlesnakes or

(45:20):
they're scared of them, it's stillvery much based on that reality that is
now passed because the fear of snakesis culturally transmitted by a families and via
the media. So things are changingnow because of that. Rattlesnakes are becoming
recognized as being really important members ofecosystems and they are no longer as big
of a threat as they once were. And so for that reason, rattlesnakes

(45:42):
have kind of gotten a rebrand recently, something that I'm very passionate about.
So I wanted to be sure tomention that everyone kind of think, if
you're scared of snakes, where didthat come from? It came from these
fears that from your parents, grandparents, whatever, that have now changed fundamentally
as you learn the reality. Yeah, thank you for saying that because so
on my shirt is a corn snake, because I have a corn snake.

(46:04):
And my grandma, who was bornin the thirties, is like, I
am not coming over your house untilyou do not have a snake because she's
so afraid of them. And I'venever been able to understand because she's from
Maine, and I'm like, youdon't really have venomous snakes that you are
walking around near. But that makesa lot of sense if you know,
back in the thirties that was athing that you probably wouldn't be able to
get treatment for. You'd have towalk like fourteen miles to a hospital to

(46:28):
try to get some help for it. So it makes a lot of sense,
definitely, all right. So Johnasked would it be in one's best
interest to use something like a walkingstick to poke ahead of them on a
trail when in rattlesnake country? Sohe was thinking along the lines of,
like you were about to step ona rattlesnake, is it more likely to
strike out at the stick rather thanyou if it was in your path and
you didn't see it. So thisis really complicated questions like this. People

(46:52):
hate my answers. Because I'm ascientist, so I do the whole it
dependens thing, yep. And that'sbecause rattlesnakes all have different personalities, they
react differently to threats and to stimulus. They're unpredictable in terms of their defensive
behavior. So there's no rules whenit comes to retl snake. So I'm
going to tell this is your patronhere my opinion, which is that no,

(47:14):
it's not worth doing that. Here'swhy. First of all, most
popular trails are clear and you cansee in front of you. And so
if you are paying attention to yoursurroundings and wearing proper footwear, which means
full solid leather hiking boots that coveryour ankles and feet, so none of
these breathable mesh panels that prevent yourfeet be from becoming sweaty, deal with

(47:34):
the sweaty feet and wear prepper footwear, then you should be fine. Right,
you should be completely fine. Situationalawareness, those types of things,
and the other reason that I wouldn'tsay, well, a couple other reasons.
It just sounds like a hassle tohave like a stick in front of
you the whole time you're hiking,Like that would ruin it for me.
But the other thing about it isthat sometimes retel snakes are sitting in the

(47:55):
middle of a trail, and ifyou go buy them, they don't even
budge might step right over them.I want to see you. But if
enough people step over them, orif they're harassed by a stick first,
they get aroused by that, they'restressed out, and then the foot comes
by them, then they might bemore likely to strike. So in other
words, there have been some storiesthat rattlesnakes that are not seen by somebody

(48:15):
in a group. The first personsteps over them, the rattle snake is
like, hey, what's that.The second person steps over them, the
rettle snake starts to get freaked out. The third person steps over them,
and it strikes. So I'm notsaying that's a rule. I'm just saying
that's a scenario that could happen.I'm just a big advocate of proper footwear.
The only scenario where I would saythat it might be worthwhile to be
poking around in the brush poking outwith a stick is in a tall brush.

(48:36):
So if you're clearing out brush inyour backyard, you may want to
poke around heavily in there to seeif you hear something rattling before you get
your hands in there to start movingit around. Yeah, and I would
add onto that too, like ifJohn is curious like what to do while
you're hiking, don't listen, don'thave headphones in or have music blaring so
that you can hear things like ifit was to rattle, so that you
can hear the rattle. So it'sa good warning side exactly. He that's

(49:00):
a great segue into his next question, which is what is the best method
to deter rettle snakes from your propertywithout causing harm to them? And then
if you do have one on yourproperty and you would like to remove it,
how can you safely do that?On my website Centralcoassnakeservices dot com,
there's a press and links section thathas a bunch of articles I've written and
YouTube presentations I've given recordings of thosethat talks about those exact same things,

(49:24):
those exact things. So I invitepeople to go look at those and some
tips that I can give you rightnow is that you can make your yard
less attractive to rettlesnakes by removing alot of the things that they like,
which are three things. Water isone thing, so if you have leaky
faucets or bird baths pools, thosewill all attract rettlesnakes. Food, so

(49:45):
rodents is another thing. Things likebird feeders that have seeds that attract rodents,
or woodpiles or other things that attractrodents will also attract reil snakes.
And then the third thing, whichis by far the most important, is
what I call low shade, solow to the ground shade, not you
know, shade from a big tree, but something on the ground that's providing
a hiding spot for those snakes.This includes woodpiles, pieces of tin,

(50:07):
or boards laying around. By theway, those of us who like snakes,
we put out skin or boards toattract snakes, so you definitely want
to get rid of those if youdon't want snakes. Also, having crawl
space under your house that there's holesthat rodent snake down into their squirrel burrows,
all those things will attract rattlesnakes.So keeping those things under control are
going to help you a lot.Another thing is the landscaping, So big

(50:30):
bushes that provide a lot of shadefor rettlesnakes are going to be places where
they can hide, and people wholive in rel snake country, we recommend
that they consider to have tall,spindly plants that don't cast a lot of
shade instead of like big bushes likelantana or rosemary or other classical retal snake
attracting plants. People who live inrel snake country who have severe problems with

(50:51):
rattlesnakes coming into their yards can alsobuild a fence around their yard that keeps
rat snakes out. My company isone of many that does this around the
country, and it's called rettlesnake exclusionfencing or redl snakeproof fencing, and it
can be added to any existing fenceto keep redlesnakes out. What was the
second part of his question, Yeah, he also is curious, like,
what is the best method to removethem from your yard if you do find

(51:12):
one. Yeah, great question.So the approved method by most states in
the United States is a relocation ofretel snakes, which means that the ratle
snake needs to be captured and relocateda short distance away, which is usually
defined as about a quarter mile toa half mile away into like a wilderness
area. Most people who get snakesin their yards are going to be living
near some type of wilderness area thatthe snake came from. So usually it's

(51:34):
pretty easy to do that. Nowit might not be so easy for people
to catch the retl snake, right. That's sometimes a scary thing for people.
So people who are worried about snakesin their yards or who find one,
they can find help by going toa website called free Snake Relocation dot
org and there's a map there wherethey can click on it and see if
there's someone near them. And inmost major areas where there's lots of snakes,

(51:54):
and there's also cities, there's goingto be somebody who can do that.
For example, my company is thathere for free in San Luis,
Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. Also, a lot of people offer classes for
those who want to learn how todo that themselves. So I teach snake
safety courses. I do one ayear for community snake handling, where people
can learn to relocate the reddle snakesin new yards themselves. And then there's

(52:17):
a number of organizations, including theredl Snake Conservancy and Save the Snakes that
offer courses in other parts of thestate or the country where people can learn
how to do that themselves. Ifthat's something they want to do, awesome.
Well I will end on a funone. Taran asked, can you
share any surprising or less known factsabout rattlesnakes that most people wouldn't know.

(52:37):
Let's do two here. So thefirst one I kind of mentioned before,
but I want to say it again, which is that rettlesnakes are highly social
animals. It turns out so evenif they do spend a lot of their
time solitarily, more and more we'relearning now have these really neat social behaviors
where rettlesnakes have, as we heard, parental care of the babies, but
also that they have friends and familymembers that they choose to hang out with.

(53:00):
So we're only learning that through recentstudies where we can do the genetic
parentage. But we see in thefield, especially on things like the live
cam, which again you can allwatch soon at reddalcam dot org, we
see the individuals like to hang outtogether. And so for example, I've
seen on the live stream two femaleswho always need to be touching each other.
They're like besties, and when anotherfemale approaches, they literally do this

(53:20):
like body bridge thing that is clearlyshowing like, no, you can't hang
out with us girls. So itis, it really is. It's crazy.
So that's one thing, is justthat we're just starting to learn about
the social behavior of these rattlesnakes.But the second thing I wanted to mention
that is a really fun fact thateverybody should know, is I already alluded
to the fact that there's very fewsnake bite deaths from any vendom snakes,

(53:42):
including rattlesnakes, and in the UnitedStates. That's not true in the rest
of the world, where there's alot more bites and there's less medical care,
but in the United States it's true, luckily. And so what's happened
now is that retlesnake venom is actuallysaving more lives than it's taking, which
people don't know that. So Iwant to share that. And that's because
there's a number of drugs now thatare made from rattlesnake venom. And so,
for example, if you know anyonewho has been treated for a heart

(54:07):
attack, who maybe who had astint put into their heart, or who's
at high risk for blood clots,it's very probable that they might be taking
a drug called eptipavitide, which isliterally made from pigmy relsnake venom, and
it's because those rattlesnake venoms have thoseanti coagulants in them, which are designed
evolutionarily to cause massive bleeding in theirprey, but when harnessed by a pharmaceutical

(54:27):
company, can provide an effective meansof reducing the risk of blood clots in
patients. And so rettlesnakes are superimportant to conserve for these reasons. Like
what other secrets lie in their venoms. A lot of people are studying them
for anti cancer effects now and thosesorts of things. So that's another thing
that you can share people can sharewith others when explaining why rattlesnakes matter,
why they're important, and what isyour favorite interaction you have ever had with

(54:51):
a snake while doing research. Ihave this story I've told a few times.
It's just was the most amazing experience. Actually, it was one of
the first times that I got togo to the Prairie rettlesnake Megaden in Colorado.
And this was during May. Itwas the end of May, and
so it was when all the snakesare there. It was before the males
and the non pregnant females leave togo hunt in the prairie. So everyone

(55:13):
was there, pregnant females, nonpregnant females, big males, baby REDTL
snakes from the previous year. Everyonewas there. And when you go up
to this den, the snakes alllike freak out. They're super scared,
and there's this logjam of snakes tryingto get down the little holes, which
is adorable, but they all diveddown the holes. So what I did
one day was I went over there. The pile of probably about one hundred
and fifty snakes all dove down thehill, and I sat down and crossed

(55:36):
my legs and I just sat therewas still, and then slowly they started
to come back out. And whenthey first started to come they kind of
gave me the side eye, likethat piece of the landscape wasn't there before.
But then they slowly I wasn't moving, so they got used to it
and they just came out. Andthey all just came out and like curled
up all around me, this oceanof snakes just all around me. And
I sat there for like two hoursjust watching them slowly curl up, watching

(55:59):
them interact. And then they justforgot I was there. I just became
part of the background for them,and it was so amazing to be right
there next to them and to watchthem do their thing and watch them how
peaceful they are and how they arethe exact opposite of the stuff you see
on TV where they're rattling and strikingand being ferocious because people have harassed them
into those sorts of behaviors that peoplewant to see on TV. I believe

(56:20):
that people really would like to seesomething like what I saw, which is
the snakes acting peacefully and socially,which is why we've developed this Ral Snake
livestream so soon everyone can virtually joinme on that hillside and see the snakes
all in a big group together.Well, I really hope that does the
work of making people interested rather thanscared of them. Like I cannot wait
to tune in. I think it'llbe so neat, and I hope it

(56:43):
makes people a little less afraid ofthem in the process. You know,
that's part of the point of whatwe do this for. Right, We
eagerly engage in any sort of thingabout getting the words out about word out
about these ral snakes maternal behavior ortheir social behavior. And so like,
one last fun tidbit for you aboutthis, which is very exciting, is
there's a documentary coming out in probablythe fall. It's called The America's and

(57:04):
it's going to be on NBC andit's the biggest nature documentary ever made,
like huge, and it's gonna beten ten episodes series of everything from the
Arctic to the Antarctic in North Americain South America, and there's gonna be
you know, ten episodes. Oneof them is going to be in Grasslands
slash Deserts and they filmed with usthe rattlesnakes at this site and we have

(57:30):
the story of the mother Rattlesnake goingto be on this high end documentary series.
And Ashley, the narrator is TomHanks. Oh my god, I
just can't wait to hear Tom Hanks'svoice. He's like the voice of America
right telling the world about the wonderfulmother Rettlesnake. It's just so exciting.

(57:52):
I can't wait. And you getto be part of it. Congratulations.
That is so well. It wasreally fun. And again the reason I
bring that up is just because hewill and they will, through this documentary
have such a huge impact because ofthe reach that they have, So thank
you for doing this podcast as wellanything that we can do to be able
to get the word out that thesesnakes are not these devilish beasts that they

(58:13):
are portrayed to be. It's reallysomething that's important work that I try to
do and I appreciate your assistance inhelping with that. Yeah, well thanks
for coming on and speaking of that. Where can people find your work and
especially where can they find your bookthat is out now. So there's one
website that is the hub to allof my projects and they can find that
at Emily Taylor Science dot com.But they can find information on project Redalcam

(58:35):
there, they can find information onCentral Coast Snake Services on my lab at
cal Poly. They could also findinformation on a link to my book.
The book is available online at allmajor bookstores including Amazon, or if people
want a signed copy, they canorder it from my website at Central Coast
Snakeservices dot com and then click onshop and I will send them a sign
copy. And we also have otherswag like limited this, some T shirts

(58:58):
with the Snakes of California and otherfun things. And all of the funding
all the funds we raised from themgo to outreach, rescue and rehabilitation of
snakes here on the central coast ofCalifornia. That is so cool. Yeah.
I always want to give people away to get involved in this kind
of stuff. So just buying coolstuff help support snake research and rehabilitation,
which is so neat, So thankyou. Yeah, that's a great way
to do it. People can alsolook at the support nonprofits, including things

(59:21):
like Advocates for Snake Preservation, Savethe Snakes, the Orient Society, the
rel Snake Conservancy. There's so manymore that people can support with small donations
and they do a lot of amazingwork. Nice, awesome, Well,
thank you so much Emily for doingthis. And that was my interview with
You're welcome. It's nice chatting withyou. Right after we talked, I
ordered her book California Snakes and Howto Find Them from her website and it

(59:42):
is a signed copy and it alsocame with some stickers. It's also just
a really nice quality book, likeI love touching the cover of it and
the pages are so nice. Andeven though I live on the opposite side
of the country in New Hampshire,as someone who loves snakes and books.
I'm really enjoying it, and I'lladd a link on where purchase a signed
copy in the episode description. Andas she mentioned, I highly encourage you

(01:00:05):
all to check out rattlecam dot org, where you can watch a live stream
of Prairie rattlesnakes in Colorado right now, and in July you'll be able to
watch Western rattlesnakes in California. Eitherway, if you're someone who's afraid of
snakes, I hope you came awayfrom this episode with a little less fear
and a little more compassion for them. And I know it can be easier
said than done, but I reallydo think if you tune into something like

(01:00:25):
rattlecam that it may help to lessenyour fear of snakes. It's also almost
officially summer here in the Western Hemisphereand I have already seen snakes around my
property, so they are definitely outmoving around. So keep an eye out
for them whether or not you likethem, but mostly leave them be if
they're not in a place that's dangerousfor them to be, or inside your
house if you don't want them there. So thank you all so much for

(01:00:47):
listening to this episode. Check outthe episode description for links and where to
find Doctor Taylor on social media andwhere to find us on socials, on
Patreon, and our website. Thankyou so much to joshuallsh for making our
inter music and his brother Jesse Walshfor his help in editing. And we'll
be back in two weeks with anew animal attack story. See yam