The Desert Wildlife Field Guide: Rattlesnakes, Scorpions, Javelinas, and What to Actually Do

Visitors ask about rattlesnakes. People who live here worry about bees. That gap is most of what you need to know about Sonoran Desert wildlife: the animals with the scary reputations mostly want nothing to do with you, and the ones that cause real trouble are the ones nobody warns you about.

Rattlesnakes

They’re here. The western diamondback is the one you’re most likely to see, and the foothills and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve hold several other species. They turn up on trails, in garages, and under patio furniture from roughly March through October.

• On the trail: stop, find it, and back away. Give it room and wait, or go around wide. They don’t chase; they’d rather leave. Most bites happen to people who got too close on purpose.
• Watch your hands and feet. Don’t step over rocks or logs you can’t see behind, and don’t reach blind onto ledges. Earbuds out in warm months — the rattle is the warning system, and it only works if you can hear it.
• At home: don’t relocate it yourself. Keep kids and pets away and call a licensed removal service.

If someone is bitten, the protocol is short:

1. Call 911. Antivenom lives at the hospital, not in your pack.
2. Keep the person calm and still, and take off rings, watches, and anything tight near the bite before the swelling starts.
3. Keep the limb in a neutral position, roughly at heart level.
4. No tourniquets, no cutting, no suction, no ice. Every one of those came from a movie, and every one makes it worse.

Scorpions

The Arizona bark scorpion is the one that matters: small, straw-colored, and the most venomous scorpion in the country. It climbs walls and hides in shoes, towels, and bedding. A sting on a healthy adult is intensely painful and usually passes; small children and older people are at more serious risk.

• Shake out shoes, gloves, and towels that sat on the floor or outside overnight.
• Buy a UV flashlight. Scorpions glow under blacklight, and a nighttime sweep of the patio walls is a local hobby, horrifying or reassuring depending on the night.
• After a sting, wash it, use a cold compress, and call Poison Control at the national line, 1-800-222-1222, which routes to Arizona’s poison centers. Any child who’s been stung, or anyone with trouble breathing or swallowing or strange eye or muscle movements, goes to the ER.

Scorpion-proofing a house is its own project; the first year in Scottsdale note covers it.

Javelinas

Javelinas look like pigs and aren’t. They’re collared peccaries, a separate family entirely. They travel in herds, see poorly, and eat prickly pear, garbage, bird seed, and your landscaping. You’ll see them at dusk in the foothills neighborhoods and on the desert resorts — at the Boulders they’re practically on staff.

They aren’t aggressive toward people, but they will defend themselves, and they hate dogs. Make noise, give them an exit, and never corner one. And don’t feed them, or the coyotes. Beyond being a bad idea, feeding wildlife is illegal in Maricopa County.

Coyotes

Coyotes are everywhere, including the middle of the city along the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt. They’re a real threat to cats and small dogs and almost never to people.

• Keep small pets in after dark, and don’t leave pet food outside.
• If one gets bold, haze it: stand tall, yell, wave your arms, throw something toward it. The goal is a coyote that stays wary of people.
• A block wall is not coyote-proof. To a coyote it’s a step.

Gila monsters

Beaded, orange and black, and about as fast as a bored housecat, the Gila monster is venomous, spectacular, and rarely seen. They spend most of the year underground and surface mainly in spring. They’re protected under Arizona law, and the bites that do happen almost always happen to someone who picked one up. Photograph it from a distance and let it go.

Bees: the actual problem

Wild honeybee colonies in the low desert are overwhelmingly Africanized, which means they defend the hive in far greater numbers and chase much farther than the bees you grew up with. The danger isn’t one sting. It’s hundreds. Colonies settle in water-meter boxes, block walls, and sheds.

If you’re attacked:

1. Run. Immediately, in a straight line, to a car or a building.
2. Pull your shirt up over your face and head as you go. Stings to the face and airway are the dangerous ones.
3. Don’t swat, and don’t stop to fight.
4. Don’t jump into a pool. They’ll wait for you to come up.
5. Once you’re inside, scrape the stingers out, and call 911 for many stings or any trouble breathing.

A loud hum in a wall means calling a bee removal company. Today, not next week.

The quieter cast

• Tarantulas wander in late summer and early fall, mostly males out looking for mates. Leave them be.
• Sonoran Desert toads come out after monsoon rains and are dangerously toxic to dogs. If your dog mouths one, rinse its mouth with a hose aimed out the side, not down the throat, and call a vet immediately. August, deep in the monsoon, is prime toad time.
• Bobcats, roadrunners, Gambel’s quail, Harris’s hawks, and great horned owls are the reward. The desert wakes up after rain, and the monsoon field manual will tell you when that is.

The one rule under all the others

Almost every bad wildlife story here starts with someone trying to touch, move, feed, or kill an animal that was only trying to get on with its day. Watch your feet, give everything room, carry water, and hike at first light by the summer sunrise rules. On the trails in our north Scottsdale hiking guide, you’re the visitor.

And for everything out here that’s spiky but doesn’t move, see the desert plants field guide. Honestly, the cholla has ruined more visitors’ afternoons than anything on this list with a pulse.