So glad that Hissy has found a good temporary home. I've always loved snakes and have had them as pets since I was a child. Later, when I was in grad school and living in an apartment just off campus, my much younger brother brought a rat snake home from scout camp. Unfortunately, my father, who was terrified of snakes, announced that either the snake went or he would go, so naturally I took him off my brother's hands and installed him in a nice herpetarium in my apartment (at which point I discovered just who my friends were and weren't!) Kaa (as I named him, from Kipling of course) stayed with me until I had to move to another location, at which point I found a new home for him.I would love to have a snake pet again, but now I'm in a New York City apartment and haven't the room it would need. I'm hoping that Hissy will find a wonderful new home. Thanks to you for being so kind in rescuing him even though you weren't familiar with snakes!

Oh my goodness, what WONDERFUL photos everyone! mikeyannie - That face, THAT FACE! It looks like it is smirking at you! MARCIA-I didn't know you lived in Estero!!! I lived there for 14 years-where and when? Your flying snake story reminds so much of when Dennis first came to live with me in Estero (Fountain Lakes). We were in a 2 bedroom condo apartment. I had a hose run across the front sidewalk just outside the door soaking a small apt. size bed. Dennis (WHO HATES SNAKES) can take on lions, tigers and bears AND snipers without a twitch, but he hates snakes. Well, Den stepped out front to start the grill in stocking feet and thought he was stepping on the hose. This HUGE racer used to sun itself on our front sidewalk in the evening. You guessed it-he didn't step on the hose. Dennis leapt in one direction and me, sitting on the patio literally saw the snake FLY through the air in the other direction. I don't know who was more startled. I just sipped my wine, giggled, and asked when the steaks would be done! I had my own racer surprise the other day, too. I do not mind snakes at all. They fascinate me, except when at bedtime Tootie is mewing about the red ring neck baby black snake that got in under the patio door and she has cornered just to show me. Anyway, the other day I went to turn on the soaker hose. We have a split valve at the hose bib and a black dual hose that can control the front or back raised beds soaking. As I turned on the water with one hand I reached for the black hose to be sure I was getting the front bed. Only thing is, the hose started wraping around my arm and I had ahold of a nice size racer. He looked at me kinda like mikeyannie's snake as if to say, hey lady, you expect me to water all that???

Corpsman - worry not about snakes. Having lived here all my 63 years I've had snakes in my backyard frequently but never been harmed. In fact, just about all of them will scatter at the first sign of humans. The only aggressive snake is a cottonmouth; they will advance on you if threatened, however, they are a diminishing species, mostly in the swampy areas. Now, if you want something really to be frightened about, I submit to you the penultimate danger in Florida, a species so scary that even grownups cringe, women recoil, babies cry; to wit, a Canadian tourist wearing bermuda shorts, sandals with black socks, sunburned from head to toe, driving a rented car while trying to read a roadmap. It make me shiver and want to curl up with a snake for safety.

YOU are the one who can't say anything nice or educated, emmawilliams1, not to mention making all Texans look like ignorant and cowardly hicks who feel the need to hack everything to death because something that looked like it hurt/scared/whatever someone. NONE of the snakes that "look like worms" are venomous, so it is quite possible that the animal which "bit" your niece wasn't even a snake at all. Even if it WAS, what animal is not going to defend itself if stepped on? Almost every animal I can think of-which is a LOT of animals-will bite or scratch or do whatever it can to get a foot off of it, and I don't blame them. MOST people who get bitten by venomous snakes, though, are bitten while trying to do exactly what you like to do-killing the snake. By avoiding that behavior and leaving snakes alone, you pretty much negate that risk. I live in SC, by the way, on 56 acres of woods and fields, as rural as you can get and still have electricity, and I state that because I know a lot of the snake haters love to claim that us "city people" just don't understand what it's like to live where there are venomous snakes. I catch Canebrake Rattlers that are far from "worm-like" every year in my yard, and I haven 't been bitten, since I don't try to kill them.