Imperial County, California

Colorado Desert Sidewinder

(Crotalus cerastes lateroropens)

I had a job once that required me to walk around the same patch of desert every morning checking to make sure there were no animals in it. It was one of my favorite jobs of all time since I could see the stories in the sand of the night before. The most common tracks I saw were of sidewinders, one of my favorite species.

When I was in elementary school (probably fourth grade, I think), long before I really had a fascination with snakes, I had to do a report on an animal. For some reason I chose the sidewinder. I don’t even know how I knew what a “sidewinder” was- maybe I just heard the name somewhere and thought it sounded cool. I tried to find anything in the school library about sidewinders and there was nothing. I ended up having to switch my animal to the deep sea anglerfish. There was lots of information on them. I still find it sad that there was more information on the deep sea anglerfish for a 10 year old to access than there was about a species that is one of the most common denizens of the American Southwest. There are now a few more resources for kids to learn about snakes, but not nearly enough, in my opinion.

The job in the desert allowed me to learn so much about sidewinders and their daily habits. I could follow their tracks through the sand and find them. That’s how I found this one, sleeping like a dragon in its. Thankfully this den had two entrances- one for my camera and one for the light.