Author Topic: What kind of snake is this?  (Read 1365 times)

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Offline rickl

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What kind of snake is this?
« on: February 21, 2011, 07:05:41 PM »
What kind of snake is this?
Post by glock32 on Aug 13, 2010, 9:03pm

Ok, while it's probably true that I spend way too much time on the Internet, I do not, in fact, participate in any snake-specific forums so I thought I would ask this here. 

Does anyone know what kind of snake this is? I just encountered it while taking the dog out. We were able to steer clear of it and it did not seem particularly interested in our presence. I suspect it was camped out there to catch some of the many well-fed toads around here. Is it a garter snake? The way its head was flattened out against the ground it was sort of hard to tell if it had any arrowhead shape to it or not.






Re: What kind of snake is this?
Post by alphabetsoup on Aug 13, 2010, 9:13pm

I wouldn't have the foggiest idea. I'm of the "If it's slithering away from me it gets to live" school of thought... 
Re: What kind of snake is this?
Post by irondiopriest on Aug 13, 2010, 10:03pm

I googled "north carolina snakes" and it looks to me like it might be a "Black Racer" snake. Hard to tell without real good apples to apples photo comparison, but out of the ones that came up, it seemed the closest match.
Re: What kind of snake is this?
Post by gunsmith on Aug 13, 2010, 10:43pm

Hey,
Found this link that may help ID the snake: http://www.bio.davidson.edu/projects/her....keid/search.asp

Me and Pandora filled it in the best we could and it came up with Black Racer snake, but that was based on the two photos. Since you saw it up close you should be able to answer the questions better.

Re: What kind of snake is this?
Post by glock32 on Aug 14, 2010, 12:01pm

I think y'all are right, the "black racer" seems to be a close match. I also found some pictures of king snakes that look sort of like that. This one would raise his head up to look around, which is apparently a common behavior of the racers. I'm almost certain he was there hunting toads. We have some of the fattest toads I've ever seen, around here. They congregate around the porch to eat bugs attracted by the lights, so I guess the stuff that eats the toads would be the inevitable next visitors. Maybe tonight it will be an owl trying to eat the snake.
Re: What kind of snake is this?
Post by johnflorida on Aug 14, 2010, 12:14pm

That looks like a Black racer alright. I have one thar patrols the yards down here and he scares the crap put of me from time to time because he has a habit of popping up when I'm not paying attention.

He is on the endandered list here because there will be a day that I'm holding a shovel and I'll be making three snakes out of him.
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