by Fire Marshal Charlotte Herdliska
Corona de Tucson Fire Department
As the weather starts to cool down, snakes will start looking for a big meal and a nice cozy place to hunker down for the winter. You want to be sure you do not have such a nice place on your property for the snake to hibernate in for the winter. Pick up any stacked stuff, like wood, crates, tires or any other stuff they can crawl under. Be safe out there.
What do you do if you find a snake in your yard, on your property, in your car or in your home? Call 911! Stay away from the snake! Do not bother the snake! Do not poke or throw anything at the snake! Call 911, and tell the dispatcher that you have a snake, let them know where the snake is or was located. If you can safely observe the snake, please do so and tell the arriving crew the location it was last seen.
I put together the following information from various internet web sites and have fact checked with other local experts and believe that this information is correct.
What You May Not Know About Snakes
Because snakes are reptiles, they are cold-blooded, which means they can’t make their own body heat the way you do. Instead, many of them live in warmer areas. Snakes are found all over the world, except in Antarctica, New Zealand, Greenland, Iceland and Ireland.
Studies on how a snake sleeps have found out that sleep comes in waves in snakes, at least 16 hours every day, and this may increase to 20 hours after the feeding. Such waves correspond with a slower heart rate, slower breathing, muscle relaxation, and lowered behavioral response.
How long do snakes live? Snakes reach sexual maturity within two to four years, depending on the species and living conditions. In perfect conditions, adult snakes live anywhere from 20 to 30 years, with natural predators and the encroachment of humans severely limiting the number of years most snakes live.
Some snakes lay eggs. Snake eggs are not hard like bird eggs. They are soft like leather. The baby snakes break out by using a special egg tooth. They lose the egg tooth after they are born. Some snakes (like copperheads, boa constrictors, rattlesnakes, and garter snakes) give birth to live babies. They do not lay eggs.
There are about 2,700 different kinds of snakes on Earth, but only 375 kinds are venomous. In the United States, these venomous snakes include rattlesnakes, copperheads, coral snakes and cottonmouths, (also called water moccasins).
Venomous snakes have fangs that are hollow like straws and sharp like needles. When they bite, venomous snakes can shoot that poisonous liquid into their victim through their fangs. Non-venomous snakes don’t have venom or fangs, but they still have rows of very sharp teeth on the top and bottom of their mouth and should be left alone.
Please contact your local Fire Marshal for a free “Home Safety Survey.”
Corona de Tucson Fire: cherdliska@coronafire.org 762-9370
Rincon Valley Fire: jbisnar@rinconvalleyfd.org 762-0742
Editor’s note: https://www.nps.gov/sagu/learn/nature/snakes.htm is a good website (Saguaro National Park Arizona) that has information and pictures of local snakes. http://www.reptilesofaz.org/snakes.html (Snakes of Arizona) is a good site that shows the color bands as a way of identifying snakes.