THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part-snakes)    Crotalidae  

Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake
Crotalus pyrrhus (Cope, 1867)
KROH-tah-lus — PIR-us

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.02.20.12.53.19)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 11.41 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Arizona California Nevada Utah

Taxonomic Etymology:
Usually pale with pink or gray speckling.
Crotalus — Greek krotalon = “rattle.”
pyrrhus — From Greek pyrrhos = “flame-colored” or “reddish” — referring to the snake’s reddish tinge in some populations.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii pyrrhus: Schmidt, Karl Peterson and D. D. Davis. 1941. Field Book of Snakes of the United States and Canada. C.P. Putnam and Sons, New York. 365pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1867 "1866" Cope, Edward D. On the reptilia and batrachia of the Sonoran province of the neartic region. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 18:300-314
1940 Gloyd, Howard K. The rattlesnakes, genera Sistrurus and Crotalus. Chicago Academy of Sciences Special Publication 4(1):1-266
1947 Woodbury, Angus M. The speckled rattlesnake in NW Arizona. Herpetologica 3:169
1956 Klauber, Laurence M. Rattlesnakes. Their habits, life histories, and influence on mankind. 2 Volumes. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. pp.
1972 Klauber, Laurence M. Rattlesnakes. Their Habits, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind. 2 Vols. 2nd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. pp.
1986 McCrystal, Hugh K. and McCoid, Michael J. Crotalus mitchellii Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (388):1-4
2007 Douglas, Michael E., Marlis R. Douglas, Gordon W Schuett, Louis W. Porras, and Blake L. Thomason. Genealogical concordance between mitochondrial and nuclear DNAs supports species recognition of the Panamint Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii stephensi). Copeia 2007(4):920-932
2017 Bezy, Robert L., Philip C. Rosen, Thomas R. Van Devender, and Erik F. Enderson. Southern distributional limits of the Sonoran Desert herpetofauna along the mainland coast of northwestern Mexico Mesoamerican Herpetology 4(1):138-167
2024 Myers, Edward A., Rhett M. Rautsaw, Miguel Borja, Jason Jones, Christoph I. Grünwald, Matthew L. Holding, Felipe Grazziotin, and Christopher L. Parkinson. Phylogenomic discordance is driven by wide-spread introgression and incomplete lineage sorting during rapid species diversification within rattlesnakes (Viperidae: Crotalus and Sistrurus) Systematic Biology syae018:

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 05 December 2025 15:53 CT