Talk about a tall tale.
A whopper of a rattlesnake captured on Fort Huachuca this week had some people, well, rattled.
It looked like "a 10-footer" to the emergency workers who caught it, and that's the length Fort Huachuca initially reported after posting a snapshot on its Facebook page.
Soldiers shuddered. Mothers of military personnel chimed in online, saying the photo made them afraid to visit their offspring at the Southern Arizona Army post.
Turns out the snake's size had been greatly exaggerated.
A 10-foot rattler is herpetologically impossible: at their biggest, Western diamondbacks grow only to about 7.5 feet.
After checking further, a fort official declared a mistake had been made and that the rattler was really about half the size first reported.
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"Maybe it was a man who measured it," quipped Tanja Linton, a fort spokeswoman.
Stephane Poulin, a snake expert at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, had another explanation.
Rattlesnakes of any size can seem so imposing that people tend to overestimate their length, he said. Actual measuring of live snakes is rare because of the potential danger.
"We get this all the time at the museum," Poulin said. "People call and send a picture saying they found a snake that's 10 feet long and they'll hold it out in front of them in the photo so it looks really impressive."
The Fort Huachuca snake still qualifies as a large specimen, Poulin said. Diamondbacks in these parts typically average 3 feet long, he said.
Linton said rattlesnake sightings are common on the fort, which covers more than 70,000 acres, much of it wildland.
Soldiers are cautioned to leave the creatures alone and call for help. Snakebites to humans are rare, she said, though dogs sometimes get bitten.
The snake captured Tuesday, near a radar site, was relocated to a more remote part of the Army post.
Linton said the snake seemed well-fed, likely from the abundance of mice and other creatures in the area.
"To a snake," she said. "this is like a Golden Corral buffet."
Did You Know?
13 species of rattlesnake live in Arizona, more than any other state.
SOURCE: Arizona Game & Fish
Contact reporter Carol Ann Alaimo at calaimo@azstarnet.com or 573-4138.