Thread: Snake ID Part Deux

I got another one, he crawled up on me as I was grilling Wahoo! What y'all call this kind?

I am pretty sure that is a corn snake. Great snake to have around for rodent control. A lot of people have that kind as pets.

Dang it, I mis-identified this one too!

Yea, googling corn snake shows close resemblance.

Yep, corn snake, and a beautiful one at that.. Completely harmless.
Bummer.

So you killed another good snake.

Definitely a corn snake. Back before D-Con was made, my dad used to encourage them to stay around our old camp house to keep the rats from chewing all the electrical wires. If we found one in the kitchen, Dad would just get the broom and sweep it out onto the porch.

I gotta defend PNG on this one. You folks that didn't grow up in Louisiana like we did can't appreciate just how many snakes we have to deal with. You grow up keeping one eye on the ground and it becomes a reflex to shoot first and ask questions second when you get surprised by one. There are four poisonous snakes in N. America - Copperhead, Cotton Mouth, Rattle Snake, Coral Snake - and they are all found in abundance from Junction City to Venice and Delta to Greenwood.
Given time to see the snake and put an id on him, most folks let them go. It's not something we do for kicks or out of malice. But I personally know a dozen or more folks that have been bitten by poisonous snake due to misidentification or just putting a foot or hand in the wrong place. I've been struck on the boot more than once but luckily never got fanged.

I'd never fault anybody for a reflex kill. Most any snake suddenly, at close range will make me jump, and I don't think we are endangering any species from the occasional "shoot first" incident.

Reflex killing of snakes? Come on man, I'm not buying that. The natural reaction when startled by a snake is to move away from it. I've killed too many snakes to try to count and every single one died as a result of a conscious effort from me. Follow your basic instinct to make a safe space between you and the snake. This allows you an opportunity to make an identification and to make a decision of how to handle the situation.

Now when it comes to identification of any living thing, be it plant or animal, taxonomists use what are called brief recognition features or BRFs. There are only two general types of venomous snakes here in the US. We have coral snakes and pit vipers. Coral snakes are easy to identify if you remember the red touching yellow will kill a fellow rhyme. Also coral snakes rarely if ever will be visible, so if you take the time to learn where they like to hide and don't blindly stick your hands in their habitat coral snakes aren't an issue. Coral snakes amount to less than 1% of the annual snake bites in the US. Pit vipers are also easy to ID, if you take the time to learn their BRFs. The best features to identify these snakes when alive are on the head and the shape of its head itself. The pupils of all pit vipers are an elliptical vertical slit and quite easy to see if you are close enough to be threatened by a bite from them. On the other hand all, not some or most, nonvenomous serpents have round pupils. Here is a good site to learn more about identifying different kinds of snakes. Snake Identification Characteristics