Snake Lovers! Picture Thread!

[southpaw]

I felt that the other snake thread was being hijacked by a couple of snake lovers, so here's a thread for us!

To pick up where we left off, here's a pic of Pudge, my Western Hognose. Not the best photo, and she was freshly emerged from burrowing in her coconut shell substrate, but check out the turned up snout.

She can put on quite the show, inflating and hissing, striking with her mouth closed and flattening her neck to imitate a cobra... but she has the face of a baby seal, so even her best 'threat' display is kinda cute.



Come on, snake lovers. Post a pic of your pet or just a snake you find attractive!

[SallyMander]

1. Here are some of my favorite shots

from a Field Herpetology class i taught earlier this summer. :D

Brown snake, Storeria dekayi


Eastern massasauga, Sistrurus catenatus


Plains garter, Thamnophis radix


Fox snake, Pantherophis gloydi


Pile o' baby water snakes, Nerodia sipedon insularum

[southpaw]

6. All beautiful pics, SallyMander

I had a garter when I was about 10. Probably the first snake I ever bought rather than caught.

I'm really more attracted to colubrids than to boas and pythons.

That massasauga is quite a chunk! About how long was that one?

[SallyMander]

10. Thanks southpaw!

I had a blast that week, that's for sure!

That massasauga WAS a chunk - she was all full of eggs. They are pretty small though - i bet she was right around 2 feet.

[Kali]

24. question

How did you know that was a female w/eggs?

[SallyMander]

25. You could actually feel them!

We had a massasauga biologist with us who handled her - he took some data, measured her, took blood for DNA analysis, etc. So while he was getting the data he just gently squeezed his fingers down the length of her body to count the eggs. I think there were 11 or 12 in there!

[Kali]

28. oh you were actually handling it

duh
and also: :scared:
I don't handle live venomous snakes (see my sig :rofl: }

how cool to feel the eggs, though:thumbsup:

[southpaw]

27. I just realized that the first pic is a Dekay's Snake

They used to sell them in pet stores by that name, anyway. I remember thinking that they were really cute, and apparently made good pets for people who were just getting started with snakes.

[SallyMander]

30. They are cute!

Yup, Dekay's - nice because they're pretty docile and they stay teeny. :)

[sasquatch]

42. Have you seen those water snakes on South Bass Island?

I like watching them.

[SallyMander]

44. Yup, that's right near where i was!

Have you ever seen one catch a fish? That's neat to watch. :D

:hi:

[sasquatch]

45. Nope, are they poisonous by the way?

[SallyMander]

46. Non-venomous

But very stinky and bitey. Don't grab one unless you want to be pooped on and bit! ;)

[DarkTirade]

2. I only have lizard pics.

No limbless reptiles so far. :)

[southpaw]

3. All herps are welcome here!

You might even see a spider or two!

Bring on the lizzards.

Anole in a tuft of monkey grass right outside my front door! Dig the blue eye shadow!

[DarkTirade]

5. I made a motivational poster featuring my gecko.

I was thinking about using her as a mascot for my leatherworking stuff. :)

[southpaw]

8. And Geckos are bad-asses!

Catch one is a pissy mood and they'll remind you who's in charge! That's a leopard, right?

I'm not really a lizard guy, but there are some awesome herps running around on legs out there!

[DarkTirade]

11. Yep. Leos are pretty relaxed most of the time

although when they're young they tend to be a bit high-strung. I got her when she was barely 5 inches long, took me a week just to be able to touch her. :) But by the time she was about 6 or 7 inches long she'd mellowed out and she would climb right up onto my hand.

[Kali]

4. a pair of wild shots

both taken the same day by my son, about 10 minutes and 100 feet apart up the same little side canyon





A friend recently sent an e-mail with a good series of a kink snake swallowing a rattler, want me to upload it?

[southpaw]

7. Let's see the King vs. Rattler pic, if it's not too much trouble!

:bounce:

[Kali]

12. no trouble just time - I have real slow dial up

loading now

[charlie and algernon]

9. two snakes I used to have

these aren't the actual snakes I owned, but similar pictures found using google.

Eastern Garter snake
He loved catching gold fish I'd put in his water bowl



Green Snake
incredibly docile, loved to be held.

[southpaw]

13. Green snakes are stunning little creatures.

My neice used to have a green snake named 'Celery'. So slender and such a beautiful, pure green!

Wouldn't it be cool if green snakes grew to be 10 feet long? Well, better yet, if there were a species that looked identical to a green snake, but grew much bigger. The little ones are perfect just as they are.

That garter looks a whole lot like the one I had when I was much younger. I named him Lightning.

[charlie and algernon]

16. If i were to get another snake, it would probably be a green

It really is the perfect size. You don't need a monster tank like you would for a green boa. Plus, if and when I ever have kids, there wouldn't be the fear that they would get bit.

The garter on the other hand could be a son of a bitch. I caught him in a field and he never out grew that wildness. I kept the snakes in the same cage and when I accidently left a corner open, the garter was gone, never to be found, while the green sat peacefully.

[southpaw]

26. Here's a larger version of the Green Snake

It's a Red Tailed Green Rat Snake. They can grow to be 9+ feet long, but they remain slender. Their tail varies from reddish, brownish or even grey, but they look very similar to the green snake.

Downside, they are known to be tempermental and unpredictable. Not the best pets.

Beautiful, though.

[southpaw]

14. Here's my big boy, Z

His name is pronounced 'zed'. I hate that these pics aren't better. I need to get them out from under the UV lights... and out from behind glass... for some better pictures.

Yes, his tongue is really blue. One of the many cool things about the Taiwanese Rat Snake.





edited: pasted wrong pic...

[Shell Beau]

15. I wouldn't consider myself a snake lover, but I am by no means a

snake hater. They are very interesting creatures.

[southpaw]

18. Yes they are!

Beautiful as well. :D

[Call Me Wesley]

17. Here's one I had:

Ball python (old b/w scan)


I also had a few corn snakes and some garter snakes, next to various lizards, tarantulas and scorpions.

[southpaw]

19. Ball pythons are schweet!

Nice, chunky snakes with slit pupils and georgeous patterns. Big enough, but not too big. And they are good lap-pets, too. Docile and laid back, for the most part.

Corns are kinda my thing. Here's a shot of Sorbet (the albino Oketee) and Appleseed (the Abbot's Oketee) resting together in an artificail bonsai tree that decorates their vivarium

[Call Me Wesley]

22. Corn snakes are just beautiful.

The ball python I had was a rescue from someone who showed it off at every night club, but when people already have seen it, it became boring. Almost all of my snakes, lizards, scorpions and tarantulas were rescues, when the 'novelty' of having such a pet was gone.

[Kali]

20. here are pix - why they are called King

[southpaw]

21. Cause they f*ckin' RULE, that's why!

Dooooooooooooooowwwwwnnnnn the hatch!

Awesome series of photos, Kali! Thanks for taking the time to upload them!:toast:

Right there is the reason why having a healthy population of Kings around is a good thing.

Not for the rattler, of course... but Kings keep the venomous snake population in a healthy balance and if you have Kings around your house, the chances of encountering a rattler, copperhead or moccasin are reduced.

I love venomous snakes, too... but stepping too close to a hot herp can be hazardous!

Thanks again for posting!

[Kali]

23. strangely, I never see them up here

I'm 1000 feet higher than where those pix were taken. I get a lot of bull/gopher snakes as in the earlier pic and like to relocate them closer to the HQ. I grew up killing any rattlers but in adulthood have modified that to just the ones in the yard/barn area (even though my youngest was bitten at 18 months!)

Part of the reason being that about the time I was noticing it myself, I read an article about how we are selecting for silent rattlers. It seems between the killing and capturing they are evolving to NOT buzz. I had begun to notice and comment on that too. When I was younger you always heard them first, now you have to piss them off before they will buzz and sometimes they never do.

[southpaw]

29. I've heard about the 'Silent Rattlers' thing

Apparently the rattle may scare away some predators, but humans have a tendency to kill a venomous snake if they actually see one... so what evolved as a defensive mechanism has, in the time of humans, become an invitation to locate and kill the snake. Hmmmm.

I've never fully understood the need to kill even venomous snakes. In certain situations it is warranted, but some people I have known operate on the 'only good snake is a dead snake' philosophy. Sad.

[Kali]

40. I don't know, partly country custom I guess

and horses don't fare well when they get bit so it is a kind of "protective" action from humans against "dangerous" nature.

At $120/vial (15-20) years ago for antivenin and no insurance, I don't like them around the HQ, that is for sure.

[Shell Beau]

41. My husband operates on that philosophy.

He is in the landscaping business and comes across moccasins, rattlers, and copperheads daily. He lets the non-venomous go but the venomous usually get their heads cut off. I can't stand that. I try to tell him to not kill them. He would never kill any other type of animal. Some people have bad ideas about snakes.

[Shell Beau]

38. Is that King snake eating a rattler?

Very interesting!

[Raffi Ella]

31. fuuuuuuucK!

this thread makes my toes curl.

[southpaw]

32. Te He!

It's all good. I don't personally understand that reaction to snakes, but if you were to fill a thread with big pics of praying mantis, I'd have the same basic reaction!

[Raffi Ella]

33. lol

If a pray mantis jumped on me I'd faint!

now that you guys have posted that black snake I'm wondering if the snakes I saw in Spring were black rats or black kings. either or, still EW.


the green one is cute though. I see those all the time wrapped around wild bushes in the woods.

[southpaw]

36. Ultimate Black Snake - Eastern Indigo

And an animal I would love to have as a pet. But they are a protected species, so you have to get a permit to own one, plus they tend to go for a pretty high price. Part of the reason their wild polulations have diminished is that they were over-collected for the pet trade... throw in some widespread habitat encroachment...

[azmouse]

34. This is soooo not the thread for me!!!

<:3)~~~~~~ :scared:

:P ...unless it's about the AZ Diamondbacks baseball team!

[southpaw]

35. Hey, we loves us some mice around here, azmouse

Yummy!

[XemaSab]

37. I had two rat snakes that sorta looked like this:

Jasper was pale tan and Opal was sort of pinkish. :)

[southpaw]

39. Close kin to the Corn Snake

which is also known as the Red Rat Snake.

The one in the pic looks like an Emory's rat snake.

Pretty animal, there!

[XemaSab]

43. Some "rat snakes" are the same species as the "corn snake"

Elaphe guttata. :)