A couple of weeks ago I pulled into my mother's driveway and noticed something laying on the concrete. At first I thought it was a unusually large earthworm, then perhaps a young snake. Carefully, I gave the snake a nudge with a stick, and indeed, it was deceased. Perhaps a lawnmower encounter. Not long ago we'd had to gently eject a young black racer the cat brought into our breakfast nook, but this driveway snake had spots, so that wasn't it.
Since the snake wasn't hurting anything, the question of its parentage became a mystery deferred. Until this week when Eva at
The Flying Mullet wrote about her first
encounter with a pygmy rattlesnake. Fortunately -for the snake - her story had a better ending.
What you have there IS a southern black racer...Coluber constrictor priabus...NOT a pygmy rattlesnake
ReplyDeleteA nice document that clears up much of the confusion on black snakes
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/UW251
Well, my mother will be glad to know that - thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe thing to notice on your snake is the head. Look how small and round it is compared to the shots of my Pygmy. Rattlesnakes have very large triangular heads. Young snakes can be tricky to ID.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link.