Name that snake

I was just about to jump in but you beat me to it LOL

Yes its a shame the poor little thing got stepped on but sad things happen all the time and at least you tried to learn a bit more about it rather than danced on its grave

The thing about rat snakes and all that body type snake is the colouring is quite variable, you will probably never get an identical match with a photo because even a few miles can make a difference to the population and it gets even more difficult with juvies as their colour is all over the map.

Even if you get freaked out at snakes - NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED ABOUT by the way! - staying calm is the first step to identifying a dangerous snake. Stay as far back as you like and still being able to see it (wink) and look at the head, a pronounced spade shape is a dead givaway. It keeps its venom just behind the jaw so big fat jaws should be avoided. Next the body, if its short and fat leave it alone. The only poisonous north American snake that isnt a short fat (yes I know, some of them get quite big but they is still FAT) snake is the coral snake and they are so shy you will probably never see one.

If you are still in doubt and have good eyesight you can check the eyes like someone has mentioned. Round pupils are nonpoisonous and cats eyes are poisonous.

Oh, and always remember snakes cant fly and really cant move all that fast so staying to look is perfectly safe and might take some of the fear away

I appreciate your attempts to alleviate my fear, but it has been there for 40 odd years and shows no signs of abating. EVERY time I still do the snake scream and dance. It is the surprise factor that gets me. Once I know where they are, I'm ok. That scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark gave me nightmares for months.

I went back and "read" the original post, rather than skimming over it. I certainly got my exercise jumping to conclusions.

I'm so used to people just killing them, for no good reason, and that's the first thing that jumps into my mind. I apologize.

Your scream and dance did make me laugh, my father is so phobic that he has managed to miss a snake at 3 ft range with a shotgun LOL and as they can make a snake lover jump with suprise I cant imagine how someone afraid of them manages.

And no one in my family will watch that bit of the movie with me as I am ranting at the screan as to where all these snakes have come from in the middle of a dessert and "Oh, look, that one must have caught the boat from South America!"

Can I use jumping to conclusions as part of my daily excercise instead of walking the dog LOL I wonder how many calleries it burns?

We have a saying in my family.............often wrong but never in doubt, so I cant wait to share the excercise one


Having never been even the slightest bit afraid of snakes I have to say I am feeling a bit odd bringing my 3 small kiddies back to the land of snakes. The closest they have been to a snake is getting to touch a Royal at the pet shop. LOL we keep getting to play the game "good snake, bad snake" on the computer so they can at least recognise them from pictures but its anybodies guess how they will all do "in the wild" as it were.

they say loss of habitat is why snakes are disapearing but i believe since wild turkeys are plentiful, they are eating the snakes, we had plenty of snakes around til the turkeys started patrolling the woods and even up on our lawn, now snakes are a rare sight, even the rattlers 4 miles up the road from us are not seen killed in the road that often anymore.

I've heard and read that mental thought processes use calories. I have just realized that jumping to conclusions doesn't use as many calories as actual thinking.

I like the "often wrong but never in doubt". It sounds like my family. I guess you get used to it after a while and love them anyway. You share my saying and I'll share yours. How's that for a good trade?

longshadowfarms, thanks for your patience with me.

I had to laugh at the snake dance. I think we all have some sort of fear reaction"dance" to something. Mine is spiders which is a slap at the air and scream or mice which probably looks something like your snake dance. I looked up the same snake last year we found him in the house about this same time of year. Found his momma about 3years ago in the oven. A king snake is different they are all black and the rat snake is a bit smaller with white or yellow markings.

Mature rat snake having eaten a rat. You can see the white markings with his or her belly stretched out like it is. We also have a king snake I have seen it once or part of it.We find a skin every year and this year the dried out skin was 6" wide at the widest part and 7' long .I am not sure we found all of it either.

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Chris
http://aberryvinefarm.blogspot.com/

i can agree with your rat snake it is a dead ringer but in looking at the snakes of new york they show the black rat snake not the striped veriety ask your kentucky site does

i am definitly not a snake person and glad i live in wisconsin where we have very few snakes, at least ones that are venomus

You'd have to keep bashing me despite my clarification to offend me No problem. There's so much reading material available any more that you'd never get anywhere if you didn't skim.

Pete, I think I'm more familiar with the black versions which is why this one was not something like I'd seen before. Granted, I'm not normally one to sit around admiring snakes. I did get video once of a snake eating a frog. That was very cool. The kids and I kept going back to check on his progress.

I'd be inclined to think it was a milk snake which is certainly common in your area. I've seen a few that look a lot like that up in my neck of northern Ontario Here's a link for you.

http://www.canadianforestry.com/html...aking17_e.html

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His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. ~Gene Hill~

Where I live folks take a hoe to a snake before asking questions.

I'm glad that while planting raspberries at work one day, I said Oh, what a pretty snake (it was a garter, there are many garters on that hill), and the young gent working with me had this hate/fear look on his face. And I think he was ready to stomp it, but didn't coz I was there, and I'm older than he is. Anyway,

Hard to re-educate folks with sharp hoes in their hands, though. eeek!

What Slats said

Its a great trade my mum laughed long and hard at it and then said that she not only gets to burn the calories jumping to conclusions but then gets to make atonement so the hole process can keep her buisy for days LOL

My brother worked at a historic site and lived in the lab which had buckets of artifacts in water siting around the place that the local yellow ratsnakes use to use to cool off in summer.

WELL, being a young man on his own for the first time it wasnt unknown for him to drink a few so one day while feeling good from a couple of beers drunk while geting ready to go out he reaches in and pulls out a nice 7 footer and drapes it over the doorway to shock his friends - objective acheaved - and forgot it. It was still there when he got home late that night the worst for a drink or twelve so he went nose to nose with it and said "BOO!"

Never say boo to a yellow ratsnake when drunk because he says all he remembers is seeing WAY to much gullet and far to many teeth as it bit him right smack on the face

Stupid boy LOL

I worked at a garden center in Florida for a while and they all got so tired of my yelling my head off when they would kill a snake that they all started calling me to remove them instead I caught on nice large grey ratsnake just about to go betweent the legs of an older woman Good thing it was aproaching from the rear (as it were) so I could grab it and stuff it under my jacket before she saw it lol