Jonesella - NO! Not poisonous. They will bite if you pick them up wrong, and it hurts, but they have no venom. Racers eat rodents and insects and small birds. Good things to have around your landscape. Not so good around a chicken coop if you have tiny chicks, but you can use screens and keep them out until the chicks are bigger.

Since I haven't posted in a while and since the new year is here, I thought I'd post my 2010 snake totals just for fun. Not as many snakes in 2010 as in 2009, but still a pretty good snake year. My 2010 snake total (570 snakes, 81 venomous): 123 Orange-Striped Ribbon Snakes, 116 Intergrade Eastern/Red-Sided Garter Snakes, 69 Western Cottonmouths, 64 Eastern Yellowbelly Racers, 47 Northern Water Snakes, 41 Prairie Ringneck Snakes, 30 Broad-Banded Water Snakes, 13 Midland Brown Snakes, 11 Yellow-bellied Water Snakes, 7 Black Rat Snakes, 6 Diamondbacked Water Snakes, 6 Western Worm Snakes, 6 Intergrade Northern/Prairie/Mississippi Ringneck Snakes, 6 Osage Copperheads, 5 Prairie Rattlesnakes, 3 Speckled Kingsnakes, 2 Flatheaded Snakes, 2 Great Plains Rat Snakes, 2 Bullsnakes, 2 Wandering Garter Snakes, 2 Red Milk Snakes, 2 Eastern Garter Snakes, 1 Timber Rattlesnake (western phase), 1 Northern Redbellied Snake (gray phase), 1 Eastern Hognose Snake, 1 Western Earth Snake, 1 Rough Green Snake.

Thanks to all of those who responded to my query in helping me identify it. Like I mentioned in the email (thanks wduzak for your support) I do NOT hate snakes but I am very uncomfortable around it). The glue boards are for catching any thing that tries to come into the garage. I have a young one who is on the verge of running. I live near a green belt where there is construction going on and I am almos sure of seeing more of these. This is the fifth one caught. I have seen a rattlesnake as well. If anyone of you is around austin and would be able to rescue snake which gets caught on a glue board i would gladly give it to you'll. But I hate to say this but the glue boards are staying where they are and I cannot compromise on that. Thanks once again for you help. The snake did look pretty though.

While looking through pictures of juvenile black snakes I came a cross a black snake that seemed to have a white spot on the head. I went to the page and read that it was a Melanistic Eastern Garter Snake. On another link I found this: "Melanism is essentially the opposite of albinism. While albinism is the absence of melanin (a dark colored pigment found in skin), melanism is the overabundance of melanin, leading to an individual with an abnormal amount of black coloration." What I thought as a white spot in the picture was a most like a reflection from the shiny black scales. This is just a wild guess, but it might have been a garter snake with an abnormal amount of black coloration. Perhaps Wayne, our GW snake expert, will come on and give us the real low down on what it most likely was.