Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamp_walker
Here ya go... http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/jnjkapf...ater_snake.htm
I went thru a "junior herping" spell where i wanted to positively ID every snake i caught. Its tough as it comes down to counting scales and such sometimes but i did positively ID all of them eventually....and from that picture I'll say a northern water snake. All ya have to do is google "northern water snake" and there it is. |
Yup same here, as a kid I caught and identified every snake I saw. kept em in aquariums outside in my folks garage most of the summer. I still have my 40 year old handbook of reptiles in America.
What swampman means is it comes down many times to counting scales from the wide belly scales across the back to the belly scales on the other side, counting specific scales on the head etc.
By the time I was 13 or so I had educated all the adults in the neighborhood that most snakes are beneficial and eat just vermin and insects and got most of the adult to leave most of them be. Any time someone found one in the neighborhood they sent the nearest kid to go fetch me so could identify it..
I had some funny times carrying home snakes and having adults run over to me on my way home, often a 4-5 mile walk or more, and go nuts and almost rip snakes right of my hands screaming they were water moccasin and to drop them so they could kill them no matter what kind of snake I was carrying.
My parents certainly got over their fear of snakes..
And learned to identify them pretty well themselves.
