Watch Your Step Texas As the Sun Comes Out So Do the Rattlesnakes

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One of the things most Texans love about living in this great state is our mild winters and gentle spring afternoons. But there is a downfall, of sorts, as it starts to warm up in Texas, the rattlesnakes come out! In fact in Texas, we can expect our snakes to be out of hibernation from late February or early March.

To be fair, all snakes come out of hibernation in spring all over the world, but we've got rattlers and we boast the second largest population of venenous reptiles in the US.

Yesterday in the San Antonio Express-News, one of their top stories of the day was of a Bee County Sheriff's Deputy, Sgt. Rick Villarreal, when he encountered a rattler as he was tracing steps from an abandoned vehicle.

Last year I wrote a viral story about two rattlesnakes spotted that were spotted on the dunes on Padre Island. Two snakes were enough to stop folks in their tracks but then we heard this little ditty... according to Dr. Richard Henderson who wrote about rattlers in the Galveston Wave," There are likely several thousand diamondback rattlesnakes that inhabit Galveston and Pelican Island."

SEVERAL THOUSAND DIAMONDBACKS!

He goes on to caution that during the summer that year, a man in Corpus Christi was actually bitten by a rattlesnake head that had been severed twenty minutes earlier!

In fact, several species of snakes are known to be attracted to the warm sand and sunshine along the coastline of South Texas but unfortunately, the Western or Texas diamondback is native to most parts of our state AND on the dunes and beaches, like the ones at Port A, Padre Island, and Galveston, with these rattlesnakes, boasting as the majority of venomous snakes who call the dunes and flats, 'home.' Yep, and they can even be found in Beeville!

Be sure to read what to do if you're bitten by a snake here.

You know what else we have in Texas that you should watch out for? Well, you should just watch rather? Giraffes! Check this out!

Here are other snakes in Texas stories we've covered! Just click the buttons below!