An Arizona-based snake removal company is boasting this week of catching the most rattlesnakes in a single call.
The call came from a home in Mesa — about 30 minutes outside of Phoenix — Tuesday. The homeowner thought he had seen only three rattlesnakes lurking around in his garage.
It turned out, there were actually 20 snakes, including five adult western diamondback rattlers — including one that was pregnant — and 15 babies.
A video shared by Rattlesnake Solutions shows snake wrangler Marissa Maki arriving at the home. In the video, Maki finds most of the rattlers coiled around the base of a hot water heater.
"That is a lot of snakes. I'm not going to lie. This is crazy," Maki says in the video.
The western diamondbacks, with their distinctive triangular-shaped heads, are found throughout the Southwest. Their venom is far less toxic than other rattlesnake species, but they still require professional care when being handled.
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The video shows Maki using tongs to carefully pick up each of the rattlers before placing them into a plastic bucket. She later drives out to the desert and releases each of them back into the wild.
Maki later explains that the snakes likely entered the man’s garage via a gap under the door and "decided to have babies in there."
Rattlesnake Solutions said it was their most rattlesnakes caught in one call. Company owner Bryan Hughes said the number could have been higher. Hughes said several shedded skins were found in the garage, indicating as many as 40 snakes may have lived there at some point.
"We'll never know how many rattlesnakes have come and gone over time," he said.
Rattlesnake Solutions made headlines in July when the company successfully removed a non-venomous coachwhip snake from a Tucson home. Their 20-second video showed that 3- to 4-foot snake being plucked from a toilet bowl and hissing straight at the camera.
