Is this a Corn Snake?

10 years ago

Found this in the garden this morning, then again later in the afternoon. Decided to catch it and get a picture. What I wanted to get didn't show up very good in the picture. It flattened itself out including its head, made me think twice about how to handle it because when it flattened out its head, it looked like a poisonous snake. I'm sure it is a Corn snake, but some confirmation would be nice. Thanks, Scott.

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Comments (6)

User
10 years ago
No. It is a watersnake.

Assuming you live somewhere in the northern part of a gulf/southeastern state somewhere, it will be a midland watersnake (Nerodia sipedon pleuralis).
Banded Watersnakes (Nerodia fasciata) can look a bit like this as well in some areas.

Either way, it isn't a cornsnake, and it is harmless.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
10 years ago
Most snakes will take on a defensive posture when alarmed. That head flattening is pretty common behavior.
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I just made it to the computer today for a brief moment, and what do I find? A snake ID! Love it! Gary, I can't see this picture as clearly as I would like, but I THINK this is a pine snake. I hope Wayne stops by for a quick look to confirm or correct me, but that's my best guess. And for sure, it is NOT anything poisonous, so no worries on that score. It doesn't look quite red enough for our corn snake, somehow, but it does look like a pine, as far as I can tell. Also called a bullsnake or gopher snake. Nice! Marcia
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Hi Wayne. I was pretty sure it was a Milk Snake. The odd thing about it was the pattern, which is so much more like the "Intergrade" Milk Snake shown on plate 30 in Conant and Collins 3rd edition, or really like a Red Milk Snake. It was awfully large too; I have seen Milk Snakes, and they were rather smaller and had more of the pattern shown in the plate for the plain old Eastern (from the Boone area, collected by Wayne Vandevender). I am wondering if the "Intergrade" happens outside the Mid-Atlantic, and if we have them, or if it might be a rather odd color and pattern variation. Oddly, for all the years I have been catching and chasing snakes (probably over 50), and to live in Milk Snake range, I had never seen one. I saw your page Wayne. A neighbor of mine was proudly talking about her son killing a 5 foot rattlesnake, and I just walked away; I hope she heard me cussing and saying that the snake wanted nothing more than to live another day, and did not want to run into an ignorant human that just liked to kill things (he air guns squirrels and pigeons in the neighborhood; he was talking about air gunning Woodpeckers, and I offered to turn him in - federal crime! HAHAHA!). Ah well, we can only do what we can do...
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These snake repellents should be called Snake Scam, not Snake Scram. There is loads of empiric evidence that they don't work to repel snakes and many of them are toxic to other animals and household pets (without bothering the snakes). Moth balls in particular are made of naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene and are very toxic and should never be put outside on the ground. Snake Scram is simply an overpriced bucket of peanut husks sprinkled with aromatic oils like clove oil, rosemary oil, cedar oil, cinnamon oil and sulphur. Studies were snakes were exposed to this sort of stuff shows that they generally crawl right over it with impunity. Just because you haven't seen snakes since you started using it doesn't mean it works. You would have probably seen the same number of snakes without it. Dogs are much more likely to be negatively impacted by repellents such as these than the snakes. I also don't like the suggestion of putting up that bird netting as it is horrible stuff. Any animals that get caught in it die a horrible death as the squirm and struggle to try and get out until their skin tears or they die of exhaustion over many days. Any venomous snake caught in it would be a potential threat since as it struggles it would attract the attention of the dogs and be much more likely to bite them as it struggles to escape. If it was simply crawling through the area unimpeded, it would be much less likely to bite them and they would be less likely to investigate it. In reality the best way to keep snakes away from your yard/pets is to remove the conditions that attract them. These conditions are the same as they would be for any animal - food, water, shelter. If you remove these attractants, you will remove the snakes without ever having to come in contact with them. A solid barrier a few feet high (even just a foot is probably enough) will discourage any snakes from entering the dog pens. If you put a sheet of aluminum flashing around the bottom of the kennel about 1 foot high, snakes will come up against this flashing and turn left or right and go around it. Biologists use this principle to make drift fences when they are studying snakes. Snakes hit the fence (flashing), turn left or right and are led right into some form of snake trap.
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It really wasn't very big -- probably less than 2 feet long -- I just zoomed way in from about 6 feet away. The following website seems to say the slit pupil and the dark hourglass pattern that is narrow along the back and wide along the sides are key distinguishing features. http://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/venomous-look-a-likes/copperhead-look-a-likes/copperhead.htm
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kentuck_8b
10 years ago
It kind of resembles a Copperhead.

Were the pupils of the eyes round or elliptical?
User
10 years ago
It does look a little bit like a copperhead in color pattern, but it isn't one. It is a harmless Watersnake.

Using the pupils to identify venomous snakes is fraught with danger. Some venomous snakes have elliptical pupils as do some harmless snakes. Some venomous snakes have round pupils.

What shape are this Coralsnake's pupils?

What about this one? This Western Diamondback is venomous and has round pupils here because it was photographed at night. The pupil shape changes with ambient light levels, just like in a cat.

And here's a harmless species (Texas Nightsnake) with elliptical pupils, for comparison -

This post was edited by FHFchrish on Wed, Oct 23, 13 at 0:07
S.A.McKenzie
10 years ago
This snake is a hypomelanistic Banded Water Snake(Nerodia fasciata); the subspecies will depend on where it was found, as there is a Southern Banded and a Florida Banded. The hypomelanism gene is a co-dominant mutation which greatly reduces the amount of melanin, or black/brown pigment, leaving the other pigments to be much more noticeable. Reptiles, unlike us mammals, have more than one type of skin pigment. It's possible that this is a 'Super-Hypo', which means it is homozygous for the hypo gene, rather than the usual hypos which have a recessive gene for the normal skin coloration, which modifies the expression of the hypomelanism. I actually breed these snakes, and once had a Super-Hypo male that looked exactly like this snake. Here is a pic of him for comparison' [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/pitbulllady/Snake%20Photos/IMG_1681.jpg[/img]

Here is a link that might be useful:
S.A.McKenzie
10 years ago
This snake is a hypomelanistic Banded Water Snake(Nerodia fasciata); the subspecies will depend on where it was found, as there is a Southern Banded and a Florida Banded. The hypomelanism gene is a co-dominant mutation which greatly reduces the amount of melanin, or black/brown pigment, leaving the other pigments to be much more noticeable. Reptiles, unlike us mammals, have more than one type of skin pigment. It's possible that this is a 'Super-Hypo', which means it is homozygous for the hypo gene, rather than the usual hypos which have a recessive gene for the normal skin coloration, which modifies the expression of the hypomelanism. I actually breed these snakes, and once had a Super-Hypo male that looked exactly like this snake. Here is a pic of him for comparison' [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/pitbulllady/Snake%20Photos/IMG_1681.jpg[/img]

Here is a link that might be useful:

Is this a Corn Snake?

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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

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