Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Sidewinder rat­tlesnakes (Cro­talus cerastes) in­habit the south­west cor­ner of the United States of Amer­ica, ex­tend­ing as far west as the Mo­jave Desert in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia and as far east as the Sono­ran Desert in Ari­zona. These rep­tiles also re­side on the east­ern coast of Baja Cal­i­for­nia, and the north­ern coast of Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia, and the Isla del Tiburon. (Frost, et al., 2007; Web­ber, et al., 2016)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Sidewinders re­side in ter­res­trial, desert land­scapes such as sandy washes, sand dunes, and the open ter­rain of warm deserts. These snakes are highly con­cen­trated near mam­malian bur­rows—close to sandy washes and thickly veg­e­tated areas. Sidewinders live in areas rang­ing from deserts below sea level to 1830 m. On av­er­age, most sidewinders re­side in areas less than 1,200 m be­cause moun­tain­ous ter­rains in­hibit their lo­co­mo­tion. (Babero and Em­mer­son, 1974; Freymiller, 2016; Frost, et al., 2007; Mosauer, 1935; Secor, 1994; Secor and Nagy, 1994)

• Habitat Regions
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune

• Range elevation

  0 to 1830 m

  0.00 to 6003.94 ft

• Average elevation

  1200 m

  3937.01 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Sidewinders are dis­tin­guished among rat­tlesnakes by their horn-like su­pe­r­oc­u­lar scales on their heads. This horn­like struc­ture is why sidewinders are also called horned rat­tlesnakes. They also have a rat­tle on their tails; the num­ber of seg­ments of the rat­tle equates to the num­ber of sheds the in­di­vid­ual has com­pleted.

Adult sidewinders have a snout-vent length av­er­ag­ing 50 cm (range 44.6 -61.5 cm). Sidewinders also ex­hibit sex­ual di­mor­phism. Fe­males grow larger than males, an un­usual trait be­cause most rat­tlesnakes are monomor­phic. Fe­male sidewinders are slightly larger when they reach adult­hood, greater than 38cm, whereas male sidewinders must be greater than 34 cm to reach the same stage. Adult can weigh 93.8 - 304 g (av­er­age 250 g), with older snakes weigh­ing more than younger snakes. Sidewinders are cam­ou­flaged in a va­ri­ety of earthen col­ors, such as light-brown, grey, and cream de­pend­ing on their habi­tats.

Sidewinders subadults can have masses up to 65.0 g be­fore they are clas­si­fied as adults. Snout-vent length ranges from 16.5cm-43.6cm in subadults.

Sidewinders and other rat­tlesnakes are soleno­glyp­hous, mean­ing they have front-fac­ing, hinged ven­omous fangs that can fold down in their mouths.

The stan­dard meta­bolic rate for sidewinders was mea­sured 0.01 mL/g*h car­bon diox­ide pro­duced at 20 de­grees Cel­sius. Ad­di­tional stud­ies con­ducted on other rat­tlesnakes such as west­ern di­a­mond­backs (Cro­talus atrox), black-tailed rat­tlesnakes (Cro­talus molos­sus), and mot­tled rock rat­tlesnakes (Cro­talus lep­idus) pos­tu­late that rat­tlesnakes have a frac­tion (0.2-0.5) of the meta­bolic rate of all other snakes. (Beaupre, et al., 1998; Beaupre and Du­vall, 1998; Beaupre, et al., 1998; Bul­lock and Fox, 1957; Cohen and Myres, 1970; Ernst, 1964; Lewis, 1949; Secor, 1994; Woz­niak, et al., 1994)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry
• venomous

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger
• ornamentation

• Range mass

  93.8 to 304 g

  3.31 to 10.71 oz

• Average mass

  250 g

  8.81 oz

• Range length

  44.6 to 61.5 cm

  17.56 to 24.21 in

• Average length

  50 cm

  19.69 in

De­vel­op­ment

Sidewinders are vi­vip­a­rous rat­tlesnakes. Dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the em­bryo in­creases at the be­gin­ning of em­bry­onic for­ma­tion (neu­ru­la­tion arises), but grad­u­ally slows by the end of the de­vel­op­men­tal stage. This is fol­lowed by two con­sec­u­tive se­ries of growth, which is fol­lowed by live birth.

Like most snakes, sidewinders ex­hibit in­de­ter­mi­nate growth. They grow faster as ju­ve­niles, and growth rate de­creases as the sidewinders age. Be­cause rat­tles in­crease in the num­ber of seg­ments each time the rat­tlesnakes shed, the num­ber of seg­ments does not equate to age, but in­stead to the num­ber of sheds. Fe­male sidewinders are slightly larger when they reach adult­hood, greater than 38cm, whereas male sidewinders must be greater than 34cm to reach the same stage. (An­drews and Math­ies, 2000; Beaupre, et al., 1998; Blom­sten, et al., 2016; Cochran, 2010)

• Development - Life Cycle
• indeterminate growth

Re­pro­duc­tion

Male sidewinders show an­nual sex­ual mo­ti­va­tion re­gard­less of am­bi­ent tem­per­a­ture. Fe­male sidewinders’ re­pro­duc­tion is con­tin­gent on the tem­per­a­ture of the re­gion. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of fe­males through­out the ge­o­graphic range forces males to en­hance their lo­co­mo­tion by search­ing for fe­males by straight-line paths through the desert. Males fed more often dur­ing the re­pro­duc­tive sea­son, as the de­mands for en­ergy are high when dis­tances trav­eled to fe­males is high.

Upon find­ing a mate, by dis­tin­guish­ing scents via the vomeronasal organ and tac­tile ef­forts, the two will re­pro­duce after courtship. Tem­po­ral dis­tri­b­u­tion of fe­males causes local polyg­yny, and fe­males will fight for males to mate. (Beaupre and Du­vall, 1998; Cochran, 2010; Macart­ney and Gre­gory, 1988; Web­ber, et al., 2016)

• Mating System
• polygynous

Sidewinder males can mate up to three times a year, while fe­males are de­pen­dent on warm tem­per­a­tures (which occur from April-July) to de­ter­mine if they are suit­able for mat­ing.

Fe­male sidewinders con­tin­u­ously feed dur­ing vitel­lo­ge­n­e­sis (the be­gin­ning of their re­pro­duc­tive cycle) but show a ten­dency to lower their con­sump­tion dur­ing ges­ta­tion (which typ­i­cally last 4-5 months in rat­tlesnakes). This early feed­ing by fe­males helps pre­pare them for the en­er­getic de­mands for ges­ta­tion and par­tu­ri­tion. How­ever, males in­crease food con­sump­tion to meet en­er­getic needs for move­ment to find po­ten­tial part­ners.

Fe­male sidewinders typ­i­cally have lit­ters rang­ing from 4-11 young born alive. They are in­de­pen­dent within 3 hours of live birth. Age of re­pro­duc­tive ma­tu­rity for the genus Cro­talus is 3 years for both sexes. (Keen­lyne, 1978; Macart­ney and Gre­gory, 1988; Web­ber, et al., 2016)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Sidewinders males can mate up to three times a year, while females are dependent on warm temperatures to determine if they are suitable for mating.

• Breeding season

  April-July

• Range number of offspring

  4 to 11

• Range gestation period

  4 to 5 months

• Average time to independence

  3 hours

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 years

While most snakes do not pro­vide ma­ter­nal care, fe­male sidewinders will guard new off­spring up to 3 hours after birth be­fore aban­don­ing their young. Be­cause this is en­er­get­i­cally costly for fe­males after giv­ing birth, they have po­ten­tial to die after strain­ing them­selves by pro­tect­ing their young. Be­yond the act of mat­ing, males pro­vide no parental care. (Keen­lyne, 1978; Macart­ney and Gre­gory, 1988)

• Parental Investment
• female parental care

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Fe­male sidewinders typ­i­cally only live 5 years, whereas, males can live up to 13 years in the wild. How­ever, in cap­tiv­ity, both male and fe­male sidewinders can live up to 20 years. Fe­males have a shorter lifes­pan be­cause birthing ex­hausts the fe­males to the point of death. Males and fe­males are also sub­jected to nat­ural deaths such as lill­nesses and pre­da­tion. Sidewinders also die from get­ting hit by motor ve­hi­cles. It has been es­ti­mated that 2383-4000 sidewinders get killed per year from ve­hi­cles. (Reis­erer and Schuett, 2008; Rosen and Lowe, 1994; Secor, 1994)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  5 to 13 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  20 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  27.3 years

  AnAge

Be­hav­ior

Sidewinders' home ranges are not in cir­cu­lar areas, but in­stead are con­vex poly­gons con­form­ing to the land­scape. Males typ­i­cally have a larger home range than fe­males be­cause they travel greater dis­tances over mat­ing sea­son. Av­er­age dis­tance trav­eled in a 24-h block av­er­aged 185.4m for males and 122.9m for fe­males across all ages. Subadult males trav­eled the far­thest, on av­er­age, 223 m per day. They can travel via their name­sake, sidewind­ing, but also have been ob­served using rec­ti­lin­ear mo­tions and lat­eral undulations.​The sidewind­ing mo­tions min­i­mize their con­tact with the hot sands.

Sidewinders, es­pe­cially males dur­ing mat­ing sea­son, are con­stantly on the move for new ter­ri­to­ries. To op­ti­mize move­ment through­out home range, males and fe­male will typ­i­cally move in straight lines to cover more dis­tance, but this type of move­ment is en­er­get­i­cally costly for sidewinders if they can­not find a mate.

Bouts be­tween male rat­tlesnakes (be­tween sin­gle or mul­ti­ple species) can last over a day when it comes to ter­ri­to­r­ial or mat­ing dis­putes. Sidewinders are non-gre­gar­i­ous snakes, but group to­gether dur­ing den­ning. Sidewinders ex­hibit di­ur­nal and noc­tur­nal pe­ri­ods through­out the year, but are strictly noc­tur­nal dur­ing the warmest parts of the year. When try­ing to stay cool, they spend 80% of their time den­ning in ro­dent bur­rows, and 20% coiled up on the sur­face of the sand.

Sidewinders hi­ber­nate in the desert habi­tats, mi­grat­ing to sandy-al­lu­vial de­posits when fall hi­ber­na­tion be­gins. They typ­i­cally hi­ber­nate in the bur­rows of ro­dents or desert tor­toises. When hi­ber­na­tion is com­plete, these snakes move to purely sandy areas of the desert. They also re­main in­ac­tive for days at a time in two in­stances: after con­sum­ing prey (in­ac­tive for 5-10 days there­after), or just be­fore molt­ing (3-5 days prior). (Beaupre and Du­vall, 1998; Beck, 1995; Cowles, 1938; Cowles, 1956; Cun­ning­ham, 1959; Frost, et al., 2007; Secor, 1994; Young and Morain, 2003)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• motile
• migratory
• hibernation
• solitary

• Range territory size

  7300 to 61000 m^2

• Average territory size

  23000 m^2

Home Range

Home ranges for sidewinders in the Mo­jave Desert were the largest among rat­tlesnake species, about 23 ha for for sexes (range 7.3-61 ha). Al­though sidewinders are ter­ri­to­r­ial, pop­u­la­tion den­si­ties are 0.48-1.18 per ha, mean­ing that some ter­ri­to­ries over­lap. (Beaupre and Du­vall, 1998; Beck, 1995; Cowles, 1938; Cowles, 1956; Cun­ning­ham, 1959; Secor, 1994)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Rat­tlesnakes have pits on the sides of their heads that de­tect in­frared ra­di­a­tion, which sidewinders use to iden­tify prey in their sur­round­ings. Sidewinders, like all snakes, use their nose and flick their tongues (tac­tile) to smell their sur­round­ings.

Sidewinders and other rat­tlesnakes have a vomeronasal organ, which is used from chem­i­cal recog­ni­tion. Using the vomeronasal organ, sidewinders can de­tect chem­i­cal in prey, and have been shown to de­tect sub­stances within the skin of kingsnakes Lam­pro­peltis to avoid con­fronta­tion with them.

Sidewinders typ­i­cally rely on the vomeronasal organ to de­tect prey in­stead of using sight, but sight is used as a lesser sense.

Tac­tile senses are used by male sidewinders dur­ing mate-search­ing, courtship, catch­ing prey, and de­tect­ing preda­tors like kingsnakes. They also move in a va­ri­ety of meth­ods (sidewind­ing, rec­ti­lin­ear mo­tion, lat­eral un­du­la­tions) and each method re­quires the snakes' tac­tile senses to feel body parts touch­ing the sand (or al­ter­nate sub­strate).

They shake their rat­tles on their tails when they feel threat­ened, which could be per­ceived as an acoustic, vi­sual, or vi­brat­ing ef­fort as a way to com­mu­ni­cate with the preda­tor. (Jayne, 1988; Moore, 1978; Secor, 1994)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• vibrations

• Perception Channels
• visual
• infrared/heat
• tactile
• acoustic
• vibrations
• chemical

Food Habits

Sider­winders pri­mar­ily con­sume desert rep­tiles such as glossy snakes (Ari­zona el­e­gans), west­ern ground snakes (Sonora semi­an­nu­lata), and west­ern ze­bra-tailed lizard (Cal­lisaurus dra­conoides), west­ern whip­tail (Cne­mi­dopho­rus tigris), and Col­orado desert fringe-toed lizards (Uma no­tata). Sidewinders also con­sume mam­mals such as house mice (Mus mus­cu­lus), desert pocket mice (Chaetodi­pus peni­cil­la­tus), Botta’s pocket go­pher (Tho­momys bot­tae). Large sidewinders also con­sume birds such as lark spar­rows (Chon­destes gram­ma­cus), house spar­rows (Passer do­mes­ti­cus), and cac­tus wrens (Campy­lorhynchus brun­ne­icapil­lus). Lizards con­sist of over 50% of the sidewinders’ diet, and mam­mals con­sist of over 40% of the diet. Sidewinders in­gest a greater pro­por­tion of mam­mals when they are noc­tur­nal dur­ing late spring and sum­mer. Dur­ing early spring and fall, sidewinders con­sume more di­ur­nal lizards be­cause the tem­per­a­ture is cool enough for them to hunt dur­ing the day. (Freymiller, 2016; Funk, 1965; Mosauer, 1935; Woz­niak, et al., 1994)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats terrestrial vertebrates

• Animal Foods
• birds
• mammals
• reptiles

Pre­da­tion

Cal­i­for­nia kingsnakes, Lam­pro­peltis getula cal­i­for­niae, coy­otes Canis la­trans, and red-tailed hawks Buteo ja­maicen­sis are com­mon preda­tors of sidewinders in the south­west United States. Sidewinders typ­i­cally react to these preda­tors by puff­ing them­selves up to ap­pear larger, and strike preda­tors with their ven­omous fangs.

Be­cause sidewinders re­side in dry, desert en­vi­ron­ments, hu­mans rarely in­ter­act with sidewinders, much less harm them. (Beaupre and Du­vall, 1998; Cochran, 2010; Cowles, 1938; Cowles, 1956; Fitch, et al., 1946)

• Known Predators

  • Kingsnakes Lampropeltis getula californiae
  • Coyotes Canis lantrans
  • Red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis

Ecosys­tem Roles

Sidewinders can con­tain blood par­a­sites from gen­era Haemogre­ga­rina and He­pata­zoon. Both of these gen­era are from the phy­lum Api­com­plexa. A ne­ma­tode re­ported in sidewinders is Thub­naea cne­mi­dopho­rus, which can be found in the esoph­a­gus, stom­ach, and in­testines. (Babero and Em­mer­son, 1974; Woz­niak, et al., 1994)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

There are no known pos­i­tive im­pacts of sidewinders on hu­mans.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Sidewinders uti­lize their ven­omous fangs for hunt­ing prey, and as a mech­a­nism of de­fense against preda­tors. More­over, sidewinder venom has in­creased lev­els of pro­tease ac­tiv­ity com­pared to other ven­omous snakes which al­lows these snakes to be ac­tive dur­ing day or night. Hu­mans rarely en­counter sidewinders, there­fore, lit­tle is known about how sidewinder venom af­fects the human body. Anec­do­tal blog post­ings de­pict necrotic tis­sue, painful swellings, black and blue ap­pendages, and vic­tims de­scribe in­tense burn­ing for days, fol­lowed by painful joints weeks after the ini­tial bite. An­tivenom treat­ments are still being stud­ied and tested in hu­mans. (Cowles, 1938; Cowles, 1956; Crump, 2010; Rosen and Lowe, 1994; Web­ber, et al., 2016)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • bites or stings
  • venomous

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Red List, sidewinders are a species of “Least Con­cern.” Fur­ther­more, no spe­cial sta­tus is given to sidewinders via the U.S. Fed­eral List, CITES, and the State of Michi­gan List. No con­ser­va­tion ef­forts are being made to pro­tect sidewinders at this time. These snakes re­side in many pro­tected areas such as Death Val­ley Na­tional Park, Se­quoia Na­tional Park, Desert Na­tional Wildlife Refuge, Mo­jave Na­tional Pre­serve, Joshua Tree Na­tional Park, Kofa Na­tional Wildlife Range, Organ Pipe Cac­tus Na­tional Mon­u­ment and the Gila River In­dian Reser­va­tion. (Frost, et al., 2007)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Cole Faulkner (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Alex At­wood (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Layne DiBuono (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Lind­sey Lee (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Joshua Turner (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

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Mosauer, W. 1935. The rep­tiles of a sand dune area and its sur­round­ings in the Col­orado Desert, Cal­i­for­nia: A study in habi­tat pref­er­ence. Ecol­ogy, 16-1: 13-27.

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Reis­erer, R., G. Schuett. 2008. Ag­gres­sive mim­icry in neonates of the sidewinder rat­tlesnake, Cro­talus cerastes (Ser­pentes: Viperi­dae): Stim­u­lus con­trol and vi­sual per­cep­tion of prey lur­ing. Bi­o­log­i­cal Jour­nal of the Lin­nean So­ci­ety, 95/1: 81-91.

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