Thank you for pointing that out. Here is the revised response without any descriptions:
The remote site on private land in northern Colorado is on a hillside full of rock crevices where the snakes can keep warm and hide from predators.
This is a big, big den for rattlesnakes. This is one of the biggest ones we know of, Emily Taylor, a California Polytechnic State University biology professor leading the Project RattleCam research, said.
The Cal Poly researchers set up the webcam in May, working off their knowledge from a previous webcam they set up at a rattlesnake den in California. The exact location in Colorado is kept secret to discourage snake lovers — and haters — away.
The high-elevation Colorado rattlesnakes take refuge in the den for winter and emerge in the spring for a short season of activity compared to rattlesnakes in the Southwest. This time of year, only pregnant female snakes are at the den while males and not-pregnant females move into the lower country nearby.
In August, the babies will be born. They’re called pups and, unlike nearly all other reptiles, they do not hatch from eggs but are born alive.
Unlike other snakes, rattlesnake mothers care for their young, protecting them against predators and shielding them with their bodies. Sometimes rattlesnakes even care for the young of others.
It truly is a group effort, a community science effort, that we couldn’t do on our own as scientists, Taylor said.
Red-tailed hawks circle above, awaiting a chance to swoop in for a meal. Once a magpie caught a baby rattlesnake.
When it rains, the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies.
Taylor expects a surge in activity after the pups are born — then even more in September as snakes return from surrounding areas in preparation for winter.
Rattlesnakes get a bum rap as creepy and threatening. But the webcam shows they’re social animals that don’t go out of their way to be aggressive, Taylor pointed out.
I try to speak up for the underdog, Taylor said, and to show people that rattlesnakes have this other side that’s really worthy of our admiration.
