Rattlesnake 'mega-den' goes live on webcam that captures everyday lives of maligned reptile

In a famous scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," big-screen hero Indiana Jones says, "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?"

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo want people to learn about snakes and be less fearful of them – through their own video programming.

Project RattleCam has two livestream feeds, which run through October, capturing the activity in and around two rocky dens: one in California and another in Colorado. Rattlesnakes hide in the dens to escape the elements and hibernate in the fall – and it's a place where pregnant snakes give birth later in the summer.

The RattleCam in northern Colorado, described as a "mega-den," relays footage from a den with as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes in the greater den complex, Emily Taylor, the project leader and a Cal Poly biological sciences professor, told USA TODAY. "That area peaks at maybe a few hundred (snakes)."

The webcam, including a solar-powered camera system, was installed in May 2024 and just went live this week.

The Cal Poly researchers installed the first RattleCam along the central coast of California in summer 2021, she said. That cam has been up and running each summer since and was switched back on this week, too.

With these livestream video channels, the researchers hope to not only learn about snakes but also help improve the reptiles' reputation.

"This livestream allows us to collect data on wild rattlesnakes without disturbing them, facilitating unbiased scientific discovery,” Taylor said in a news release on Monday. “But even more important is that members of the public can watch wild rattlesnakes behaving as they naturally do, helping to combat the biased imagery we see on television shows of rattling, defensive and stressed snakes interacting with people who are provoking them.”

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Wait, there's a livestream were I can watch rattlesnakes?

Yes, there's two of them. Go to RattleCam.org and you'll see the Colorado and California feeds. You can also click on them and be sent to the live feeds on YouTube:

• The California Rattlesnake Rookery Livestream runs 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day from July through October.
• The Colorado Rattlecam Livestream of a Prairie Rattlesnake rookery runs 24-7 from May to October.

If you see something interesting while viewing one of the live streams, Taylor told USA TODAY, "viewers can tip us scientists off at any time by filling out the form in the caption of the YouTube livestream, or by writing in the comments."

Researchers recommend watching in the morning and the early evening for the best serpentine action.

“It has been amazing,” Taylor said in a description of the Rattlecam project. “We watch the snakes drinking water off their backs, which is adorable. We’ve seen predators snatch up baby snakes. Magpies take babies and smash them against the rocks. It’s a fascinating look at nature in action without the disruption of human proximity, which would affect how the snakes behave.”

If you want to see small rattlesnake pups emerge, watch the cams starting in August, Taylor said. Then in September, male snakes will return to hibernate. The cameras are turned off during the winter.

“We hope to eventually install cameras on snake aggregations (group gathering) all over the world to help us better understand the behaviors of these complex, social animals,” Taylor said.

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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