Venomous Mojave rattlesnake made itself comfortable in Arizona family’s home gym

Home gyms seem smart during a pandemic, but one Arizona family regretted the idea after finding a rattlesnake camped out on its shiny new equipment.

A photo shared New Year’s Eve on Facebook shows the gutsy snake was found “at eye level” atop a wall mounted dip stand, with its head strategically facing any potential users.

It was identified by Rattlesnake Solutions, a snake relocation service, as a Mojave rattlesnake, a heavy-bodied reptile known to have a particularly potent venom.

“The family installed that home gym in their garage during the pandemic to work out. They woke up that morning and were greeted by him,” Rattlesnake Solutions staffer Greyson Getty told McClatchy News. “He never buzzed, just stayed up there.”

It happened, coincidentally, in a town called Surprise, northwest of Phoenix.

The photo rattled people on social media, with commenters noting the snake could easily have been missed during a workout — until it was too late to avoid a bite. (There were also some jokes about rattlesnakes skipping leg day.)

“You would not ... expect to see a rattlesnake 6 feet high. This could scare the heck out of someone!” Julia Zenor-Takinen Watkins wrote.

“That would freak me out ... and I don’t mind rattlers,” Michael Corcoran said.

Getty captured and released the snake back into the wild and no one was harmed, including the snake. It was “average” in size, which is no more than 4 feet, he said.

Mojave rattlesnakes may be “touchy” but they have an unfair reputation for being aggressive and chasing people, according to Bryan D. Hughes, owner of Rattlesnake Solutions. “Mojave rattlesnakes are, in reality, very defensive. This may mean that they can rattle and strike with more enthusiasm than other types of rattlesnakes, but this is a defensive behavior. That is, it’s started by you,” Hughes reports.

One detail of the gym encounter continues to be debated on social media, with good cause, Hughes says: How did a species of snake known for its poor climbing skills get 6 feet up?

“If they’re motivated, they can do a lot of things,” he says. It’s possible the snake used “some holds from a rock-climbing setup on the wall,” but Hughes is not completely convinced.

The snake is believed to have gotten in the garage after its home turf, a nearby desert creek bed, was disrupted by “digging and mining.” A homeless camp also popped up in the same area, adding to the disruption, Getty says. “He seemed healthy, so he hadn’t been wandering too long,” he said.

This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Venomous Mojave rattlesnake made itself comfortable in Arizona family’s home gym."