Can't have you thinking all is gray and drear in my life at the moment. We've been having a mild winter and the few times I've been able to get out I have been treated to nice little surprises.Here is a little snake I saw last weekend while out taking a Sunday morning stroll. It is a DeKay Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi). These little snakes max out at about a foot and a half in length. They make their living munching out on earthworms and slugs and are actually quite common in urban areas. I have never seen a brown snake even try to bite, but they will musk on you in a hearbeat!
8 comments:
You must have ESP! :) I'd been wondering if the snakes would come out with all the warm weather lately.
Better start watching where I step!
Snake musk....eeeuuuuwwwww! It does stay with you.
Why'd you have to go and do that... you know I don't like snakes...
Hehe...but woverman, it's just an itty bitty snake...
Guess what -- I may have broken a rib today at school. I was being the violator and two officers were taking me down. At least that's more exciting than when I bruised my rib trying to put the cover on that canteen :)
These days, it's hard to get over on me re: snakes. But today is an exception. A new snake has been added to my mental species list. I had never heard of a DeKay Brown snake.
Awesome.
Thanks.
Oh - and what FC said. Musk is some seriously FOUL stuff.
Well, TF and FC, there's one advantage to not being able to smell.
Dekay's snakes figured prominently in my childhood. I always had one. And besides being very pretty, they were absolutely great pets - always ate, very docile, even pumped out a few babies now and then. I had a half coconut shell with the three micropyles punched out and the snakes were always drawn to it.
Certainly not the fashionable snake to have now, such itty bitty things they are compared to boas and pythons that seem to be popular, but a lot of fun to take care of.
Thanks, Swampy, for a blast from the past.
We had to rescue one of these out of our pool last summer. It was tiny, though. I didn't realize we were in danger of being musked! Snakes do that???
Nelumbo, snakes are notorious for letting fly with some pretty nasty smelling stuff :) Green snakes, ring-necked snakes, brown snakes, and hog-nosed snakes are particularly quick to musk. Luckily, the only harm done is to injure your pride when you have to go around smelling less than pleasant...
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