Test your snake trivia at Más o Menos Wednesday (7/16) for “World Snake Day” and join the snakepit on Friday at Corner 62

This week is World Snake Week, a time to consider the snake. We’ve got plenty of them here in the Morongo Basin, and one snake wrangler is eager to spread the good word about the ground slitherers. I spoke with Twentynine Palms-based snake wrangler Paisley Ramstead. She’s put together two local events to help celebrate our local legless reptile population. What does she love about snakes?

“Just everything! I’ve spent so much time with snakes, including wild snakes. And every year, I get to witness a snake eating roadkill or a snake climbing something I didn’t think they would climb. Or there’s just so much for us to learn. Even just the other day, I got to see a coach whip periscoping in my front yard, which is a behavior I knew they did but I had never seen it firsthand. 

“The biggest misconception about snakes is that they are out to get us. Everybody’s got a story that they or their cousin or their cousin’s friend was chased by a 12-foot Mojave green rattlesnake. And that just isn’t true. Snakes can be defensive. More than anything, they just want to be left alone. 

“We have about 20 species of snake in the Morongo Basin. Depending on if you include certain parts of the Coachella Valley or other parts of the high desert, you might get up to 22, 23. And the majority of our snakes are non-venomous. Our only venomous snakes are rattlesnakes.So if you see a snake and it has a nice, long, pointy, sharp tail, that is not a rattlesnake.”

World Snake week is happening right now, and Ramstead has put together two events.

“It is World Snake Week is happening July 13 through July 19. World Snake Week was started by a little cohort of rattlesnake and other snake researchers, including my friend, Dr. Emily Taylor, one of the leading rattlesnake biologists here in California and nationwide.

“I decided to do some snake outreach, so I’ve put together a couple events.

“First, we’re going to do snake trivia at Más o Menos on Wednesday, July 16th, which is actually World Snake Day. I’m partnering with the Joshua Tree National Park Association. So there’s going to be some opportunities to benefit them and test your snake knowledge. I will also be there with my outreach booth. So you can come learn about snakes and even meet and touch and hold a live snake if you’re interested.

“And there’s going to be something for everybody. So whether you are an expert on local snakes or whether you know nothing I promise there will be questions that you know.

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“On Friday (July 18) Paisley’s Snake Pit is going to pop up at Corner 62 in Twentynine Palms. I’ll have live snakes to meet. We have a little snake skin craft station people are going to get to play with and even take a little treasure home. Corner 62 is also going to be doing a Snake Plissken lookalike contest, as well as an Axel Rose ‘snake dance’ contest and all the shops are open late.”

And why should we love snakes here in the Morongo Basin? 

“Because they’re cute. But more importantly they are members of the ecosystem, just as we are. Snakes feed on a lot of the things that we don’t want around.

Everything from rodents that will eat the wires of your car to scorpions. (8:36) And there’s even a species that likes centipedes and there are snakes that eat termites. So a lot of the things that we don’t like, snakes will help us take care of.”

Paisley Ramstead will be popping up with her snakes and snake trivia Wednesday night at Mas o Menos, located at 66031 29 Palms Highway in Joshua Tree, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

On Friday, she and her snakes will be at Corner 62, located at 73552 29 Palms Hwy, Twentynine Palms, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.