We Found Desert Animals of the Night

All righty. What is up, YouTube? today is very exciting day because for the first time ever, am actually about to head out west all the way to Arizona for the monsoon season. The monsoon season is essentially when the deserts of the southwest get lot of rain. And that rain brings out all types of activity from not only snakes, lizards, toads, and frogs, but also bunch of insects and things like that. And Arizona in general is some place that I've always wanted to go because it has 11 species of rattlesnake, which is more species of rattlesnake in any other state in the United States. So, yeah, I'm really excited. I'm meeting up with my buddy JB Martin now from the Catch It Brothers. Go check out their YouTube channel. It's absolutely incredible. They do all types of amazing wildlife content. And if you like my stuff, you'll probably like their stuff. So, yeah, I'm really excited. But I'm like 3 hours early for my flight because was just so nervous and so anxious and so ready to get here and just be here, bro. I'm just ready to get to Arizona. Just the fact that I'm going to see cactuses and desert sand and stuff like that is going to be completely culture shock. Completely different for me. got and everything. You know what I'm saying? I'm fitted. I'm ready for it. So, yeah. I'm basically just going to sit in the airport, study my Arizona herps, and yeah, I'll see you guys when we get on the flight. All righty. I'm just going to have to hope that this comes out sounding good. But basically, guys, we've landed down here in Arizona, and I'm outside for the first time, and can already feel how hot it is. It is absolutely hot. But basically, have couple of hours to kill before JB gets off work. So, was planning to just sit down, be responsible, edit some videos, catch up on these YouTube videos that I'm really behind on. And then saw how close the desert was and all the other wildlife that's around here. And so I'm about to go off into some mountain area where there's bunch of lizards, possibly western diamondbacks and all the stuff I've never seen before. So I'm taking y'all with me. don't know. I'm just excited to get out there and see the habitat, get acquainted, and then tonight when JB picks me up, we're going at it. He's promised rattlesnakes and he's promised very special rattlesnake being the Sidewinder, which I'm going to lose my mind and you guys are going to see me lose my mind on camera. But until then, I'm just going to hope that any of this was coherent audio-wise, and I'm just going to get to this park, put on my gear, try to figure out where to put this backpack. As you can see, I've got my entire life on my back and yeah, do not want to lose any of my expensive camera gear or laptop. That would start this trip off to very bad start. So, nonetheless, yeah, we're going to get after it. Wait on this Uber. Okay, guys. So, here's little update on the situation. And so basically, I'm kind of cooked right now because I'm going to have to carry all of my gear and all of my clothes with me the entire time hike around in this desert area. But out of all the places in the world to be cooked, look at that. It looks absolutely beautiful out here. So, I'm pretty excited to get out here and get after it, but I've got to do some things really quick first. Most of those things being safety precautions. So, essentially, have map here of the area that I'm going into so don't get lost. And then also just bought some waters from inside the visitor center here because did not have any. And already just getting off the plane, my throat is like so dry. It's like so cooked here. It's like just feels like heat. Like don't know how to describe it. Like it literally just feels like pure heat. So, the person inside the visitor center was very admit on me not going too crazy and hiking anywhere extreme because am going to be carrying all my stuff on my back and don't have lot of water and whatnot, but caveman, you know, I'm built different. Stop it. Get some help. I'm tough guy, but you can't beat hydration with muscles. So, I'm going to be smart about it. But basically, all I'm going to be doing is looking for anywhere there's shade and shelter that would escape the daytime heat. And think if there's any chance of me getting reptile, it's going to be in the areas like that versus out in the direct sunlight because it's hot. It is really hot. few moments later. All righty, guys. Quick update. It's hot. Like, holy cow. Like said, it's crazy because think just put my butt into cactus. Wow. Wow. Everything's sharp and pokey here. did just sit into cactus needle? this is in my butt cheek right now. we are back to where we started about an hour later and just an hour out there if even that. I'm fry your boy cooked. So, yeah, they were not joking about the heat here. am just absolutely beat, but we did see lot of cool lizards and they were all the first time I've ever seen those species. So, count that as count that as win. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get them in hand just because they were so fast and we were so slow and dehydrated and toing all this gear. But, think tonight's going to be pretty crazy. Like was saying earlier, like we're going to see ton of wildlife. The desert gets so hot during the day that many of the reptiles and things like that that love to look for are going to be out at night. They're all going to be nocturnal or at the very least corpuscular, meaning that they're coming out in the early morning or the early evening. And then with the rest of the day with all that heat, they're going to be underground under rocks and things like that trying to escape the heat. You got to you got to retain your moisture out here in the desert. You got to retain your moisture. And we don't have scales like the reptiles do to lock ours into our bodies. So I'm just cooked right now, bro. But I'm hyped. Just being out in the habitat and seeing it all up close for the first time after seeing all this stuff in books for years just feels absolutely insane. It doesn't feel real. I'm gonna be real. don't think it's going to hit me until I'm holding the first animal from this trip. But yeah, I'm just going to kind of relax and kick it for the next couple of hours and then we will link up with JB. Awesome. Just to recap, Caveman bravely spends exactly 1 hour outside. In that time he spots two lizards, makes friends with three cactuses, which they weren't too fond of cavemen, and he was promptly defeated by the mighty Arizona sun. Having now experienced the West, he retreats to the nearest cultural landmark, In and Out, his first time ever. As night falls and Caveman contemplates becoming permanent fry himself, JB finally arrives to rescue our toasted hero from certain doom. All righty, guys. You can't even see me right now because I'm like flashbanging you. But thank you so much, JB. I'm about to introduce you. This is JB, the man, the myth, the legend. JB, how can they follow you? How can they find out your content? All that good stuff. we got Instagram, JB_Martino, and then YouTube is Catch It. There you go. He makes really dope videos. And he just showed me my first ever set of Sidewinder tracks. JB, you want to tell them what we're looking at right here? Yeah. So, we got you could kind of see their little lines right here. So, the best way to look at Sidewinder tracks, if you go like this, you can't see them, but if you hold your light down low, you can kind of start to see these imprints in the sand. And these are the rattlesnakes that we're trying to find because you want to find one, right? So, I've never seen them. Never seen them before. Nothing out here is something you've seen. So, that's going to be fun. We can't lose. No, we can't lose. All right, let's go get Sidewinder. And just like that, it didn't take very long to find our first Sonorin side winder, Cortalis Sarasi Curco Bombas. But before tell you guys about this amazing snake, got to come clean. Your boy messed up and didn't turn on his microphone. So, for the entire time we were filming all of that beautiful cinematic footage, there's no audio. There's nothing to hear. So, I'm going to have to stand on the corner of the screen and you guys are going to have to listen to me yap about this snake in person. All righty. What y'all are looking at right here is arguably one of the most iconic species of the deserts of the Southwest. This is the Sidewinder rattlesnake, Cortalis Sarassi Croco Bombas. Try to say that three times fast. The Sidewinders earn their name for their unique method of locomotion. Locomotion being the way that they move. So, the Sidewinder does little motion like this and sort of throws its body over the desert sand in comical way, but very practical way. And that's because where it lives, the desert is super hot. And if they were to let their bodies touch the ground the entire time, especially during the day, they turn to beef jerky pretty quick. So, what the side winding it allows it to do is only have few points of its body touching the hot desert sand at once. And it's able to sort of hop and skip over the hot desert sand without burning up. The Sidewinder rattlesnake is not very big rattlesnake compared to the other ones of the Southwest. The giant western diamondbacks and the huge blacktails. They're only about like that big. And they only get that big and they're just tiny and cute. And kind of like them because of that, too. mean, it's just little cute rattlesnake. But just because they're tiny doesn't mean they don't pack punch. very potent venom on these little rattlesnakes. If you got bitten by it, you need to get medical attention immediately. You would not want to take that bite and just try to walk it off. As you can see, the Sidewinder is immaculately colored for its environment. Look at how beautiful that patterning is. And it works really well in the desert scrub and desert sand. It's able to camouflage itself really well from predators and also from its prey. Coiled up just like that, most people would walk right past that rattlesnake and most little rats would run right in front of that little rattlesnake. So, it really works in its favor. As you can see, the female that I'm holding is really chunky. She's been eating really good. And these Sidewinders are rodent and lizard specialist. They just sit quoted up in ambush at night waiting for kangaroo rats and mice and banded geckos to run by. And when they do, bam, they hit them hard and hit them fast. Inject them with that potent venom. The rest is history. And Sidewinders are rattlesnakes. So like any rattlesnakes, they have rattle. And these rattles are made out of keratin, which is the same thing your fingernails are made out of. And every single time this snake sheds its skin and gets bigger, another ring is added to that rattle. And their rattles are kind of funny because they're not very loud. They almost sound like little bee buzz, but it still gets the job done. And when they're really the most active is at night and at dusk and dawn. They're highly nocturnal and highly kpuscular. But what fascinating little rattlesnake. Like said, arguably one of the most iconic snakes out here in the southwest. And how we found these snakes at night was just like JB and were saying before. We just literally could see these cool little S-shaped tracks in the sand that sort of laterally move to the side. And there's no other snake out here that moves like that. So, we knew we were in some good habitat for Sidewinders. And we ended up finding two individuals that night that were absolutely beautiful. Woohoo. After talking about this beautiful snake, Caveman safely returned the Sidewinder to its original habitat and ventured on with JB. To his surprise, he came across another spended animal. But unfortunately, Caveman didn't learn his lesson and yet forgot to turn his mic on once again. Yeah, you heard the narrator, bro. We We ain't going to talk about it, but we're going to talk about it. So, what you're looking at right here is the giant desert hairy scorpion, Hydurusensis, which think is probably one of the coolest species of invertebrate out here in the Southwest. They're really common, but don't think that makes them any less interesting. And believe it or not, they were like in my top three invertebrates that wanted to see on my trip out there to Arizona. The giant desert hairy scorpion gets the name not just because it's giant and not because it lives in the desert, but also because it's hairy. He's got these little hairs all over his body that are highly sensitive to vibration. So, it allows him to walk around and just stumble in the desert at night, not even really being able to see where he's going. But if cricket or something scuttles next to him, he turns that way. And if spider runs this way, they'll turn that way because these hairs are really highly sensitive and pick up all that vibration. Now, you've probably seen this before. Scorpions glow under black or UV light. And that's because they have chemical compound in their exoskeleton called hyene. And hyene, don't even know what that is, but it glows apparently under UV light. And so that was the first time I've actually ever gotten to see that phenomenon in person. And so it was just really dope seeing this little scorpion that like, you know, you turn off the lights and he's not in on my hand anymore. And then all of sudden, bam, you hit him with the light and he's like right there glowing and running around in the desert at night. It's pretty cool. As you can see, just like all scorpions, the giant desert hairy scorpion is armed with these powerful claws up front. And those are used for subduing their prey and grappling with other males for the shorty. These guys are absolutely incredible. And they use these claws to grab, hold on to their prey while they use that tail to come over the top and sting them and inject them with paralyzing venom. The giant desert hairy scorpion venom wise is not the most potent at all. Most people say that when they've been stung by these scorpions, it's like bee sting, maybe little bit worse. It hurts. It's not the most fun, enjoyable thing you want to have on Saturday night, but it could get lot worse. That being said, venom affects everybody differently. So, for me, get stung. Be sting. I'm cave man. I'm tough. I'm built. I'm built different. You're not that guy, pal. Trust me, you're not that guy. I'm joking. I'm joking. But still, the principle still applies. Never underestimate an animal's venom because it can affect everybody differently. You never know how your body's going to react to it. And these guys just sort of walk around the desert at night, do the patrolling, eating all types of crickets, spiders, centipedes, other scorpions, pretty much anything that they can find. They're like little gladiators. Their bodies are real hard, real robust. Their exoskeleton is really tough, and they've got those big old claws, and they just they just look primitive. Scorpions are just some of the coolest looking invertebrates to me on the planet. What an amazing little animal. And yeah, it was so awesome to finally see this species because ever since was little kid, dreamed of seeing giant desert hairy scorpion. And found giant hairy and in the desert one. So, woohoo. How you doing? Thank you guys for watching this video. If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, comment down below what you enjoyed. Thank you for sticking with me. That audio mistake was absolutely crazy. But shout out to Bobby Harden Jr. for being the man behind the mission and saving this video and coming up with this crazy idea. So, if you guys want to see more of me just jumping in on camera cuz there's going to be probably be more mess ups in the future. Just let me know if you like that stuff. But if you haven't already, go check out our other videos on the channel. We have the Panama vlogs, the Amazon videos coming soon, all that stuff you won't want to miss. If you haven't seen the Anaconda stuff, definitely go check that out. We just dropped the raw catch the other day. Full adrenaline, pure octane, uncut. And then if you haven't seen the documentary, come on now. Have you not seen the documentary? Go watch the Anaconda documentary and let me know what you think. But other than that, don't have anything else to say. Thank you guys for watching. love you guys. Woohoo.