Rattlesnake 'Combat Dance' Blocks California Bike Path [VIDEO]

In an unusual event on Sunday, a pair of rattlesnakes performing a "combat dance" blocked a California bike path, unfazed by the onlookers staring at their tangoing behavior.

After the snakes crossed paths on a dusty bike trail that runs through California's Sycamore Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains park, the pair engaged in what looked like a tango for about four or five minutes.

According to Greg Pauly, a herpetologist at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, they were not a male and female performing a mating ritual, despite that initial assumption. Rather, they were males attempting to assert their dominance through a "combat dance."

A volunteer with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area spotted the swaying serpents, and the park service blocked traffic so the unreserved snakes could complete their dance.

"They not only chose to perform their 'dance' in the middle of the trail, but they ignored the onlookers with cameras. Once they were finished, they fired up their rattles and slithered off to opposite sides of the trail, as if to say 'that's all folks!'" the park service wrote on their Facebook page.

Rattlesnake courtship can last for days, Pauly says, but combat dances, on the other hand, is a bit briefer and involves one male trying to out-stretch the other.

"Male rattlesnakes will often spend multiple days with a female until she is ready to mate," Pauly told The Dodo. "If another male comes along, the two males will engage in this 'combat.' The combat typically involves the two rising up into the air and trying to push the other back to the ground. Usually the larger male wins and the other leaves the area."

"So what people often don't realize when they are watching this wrestling match," Pauly added, "is that somewhere close by is probably a female rattlesnake."

Rattlesnakes are one of the most iconic North American groups, known for their noisy "rattles" on the ends of their tails. They typically live in forests, grasslands, scrub brush, swamps, and deserts, found in most parts of the continental United States but most common in the southwest, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

They can reach up to five or eight feet long and live in the wild for 10 to 25 years.

[Credit: SeanBlue622]