Snake Identification Question

[Starbrite]

Now I have the willies I would've ran, then hired movers to start packing my belongings as I house-hunted from a hotel!!!

If you still have it....

Oh Dear...I sure hope OP doesn't still have it!!! Why on earth would you keep it around?

 

[brerrabbit]

Rat Snake. See a lot of them here in Texas. Copperheads are a little more shy than that and I have not heard of them coming into houses very often. We generally don't see many Corn Snakes in Texas except Dallas and North.

Six months after we moved into our new house long ago, I found about a 4 ft long snake skin in the attic. I was pretty sure it was a Rat Snake as they love to hang out and catch and eat mice.

 

[daughter_of_amid_chaos]

I don't know why I always feel the need to open these threads when snakes are my biggest phobia in the world.
I am now all itchy and will be panicking thinking there are snakes in my house.....

 

[KristaTX]

Before I am reprimanded, I knew what I was getting into from the thread title. I was right; I hate this thread .

 

[Planogirl]

I think that it's a rat snake. The markings and head look right. It's definitely not a copperhead.

 

[Hercules10]

It's Nagini! You killed poor Nagini!

 

[PixieDustandEeyore]

It's Nagini! You killed poor Nagini!

Best.. response.. ever
Maybe all those afraid of snakes just need to find a parseltongue to live with them.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

I don't know why I always feel the need to open these threads when snakes are my biggest phobia in the world.

Me too!
I don't know what I thought the rest of the story would be... maybe here's what i found in my WDW resort room!!!

And please, if anyone has found a snake in their resort room, DO NOT tell me! Ignorance is bliss

Claire

 

[SaraJayne]

Looks like a baby black rat snake to me. They look like copperheads when they're little. The difference is with the eye and head shape. Non venomous snakes had rounded heads and round eyes. Poisonous will have triangular heads and pupils are not round.

I had a baby black rat snake in my carport last year. Scared the you know what out of me since I thought it was a copperhead.

A BABY? That's a BABY snake??

I'll stick to the ice and snow, thankyouverymuch!

 

[JVelasquez]

Same here! I don't know if I would feel comfortable going back to my house. Snakes are my biggest fear!!!

I am not exaggerating when I say: If I found that in MY home, I would still be in the hospital from the massive panic attack brought on by such a sight

 

[Elianor]

My town has a nature center that will help identify potentially harmful reptiles. Since the snake in question is dead, put it in a box and take it to a local that can identify it and put your mind at ease.

I would definitely try to figure out how it got in though. If one can get in, others can follow.

I don't have a snake phobia (rather like them as long as they are outside) but it's not something I want in the house with my kids!

 

[X and G's mom]

A BABY? That's a BABY snake??

I'll stick to the ice and snow, thankyouverymuch!

As I look at the blizzard that we are still having right now I agree with you!

I would've had a heart attack seeing that! 911 would've been called......

 

[goofy!]

I vote rat snake. Glad you got it out of your house.

Reminds me of when we found a snake in our house.

DH and I had just married and purchased/built our first home. We were one of the first to finish, so lots of construction, open space around us. We had only been in the house for a few weeks.

The house was an itty bitty tri-level. You walked in the front door to a small living room, barely big enough for a couch and loveseat in an L position. On one wall was railing that looked down into the lower level family room. The living room had vaulted ceilings and the master bedroom was directly over the family room, so half a story above and its wall was the living room wall above the railing.

I was sitting on the couch facing the railing, talking on the phone. I wasn't really paying much attention to what was going on around me as I was engrossed in my conversation.

Then all of a sudden, it caught my eye that one of the railings was moving. I looked closer and there was a 6 ft bull snake wrapped around the railing.

My husband was napping in the master bedroom and he said my scream not only woke him, but rattled the wall between living room and bedroom. He had to pretty much peel me off the ceiling as he came running down the stairs.

We got rakes, sticks and brooms to try to uncurl the beast from the railing. Now, we are newly married and brand new homeowners so we didn't have many household tools to kill/remove the thing.

We didn't know what kind of snake it was, only that it was hissing, striking and shaking its tail. So, we thought the worst that it was poisonous. We live in an area that is rampant with rattlers, so not knowing what it was, we thought it might be a rattler.

We finally got it off the railing and was trying to shoo it out the front door when it coiled and raised its head, threatening to strike. If anybody knows bull snakes, they capitalize on their resemblence to rattlers by acting a lot like them. They can hiss so that it sounds like a rattler. They coil up and prepare to strike like a rattler. They are generally ill tempered snakes when cornered.

We finally got it out of the house with a squirt gun (thank goodness we still had some of our kid stuff). We chased it about a mile down the street, back into the open space behind the houses.

I still remember the sheer terror of casually looking over at our railing and seeing it start to move.

 

[DisneyCP2002]

It's Nagini! You killed poor Nagini!

That made me laugh! As a big HP fan, I hadn't even thought of that LOL

 

[DisneyCP2002]

OP here. Thank you all for your responses. We are now pretty sure it was a rat snake. We plan on having someone out in the very near future to check out the house for others. Also yes I did panic when I saw it but I knew it wouldn't get the snake out so I remained cool until it was dead. THEN I had a panic attack.

 

[MulanUSAF]

Since we're talking about snakes, I'll share my close encounter story from a couple years ago.

One evening, I was alone in the house, watching TV when something in the corner of my eye MOVED. I was quite startled when I realized that it was a skinny black snake. It was coiled up next to floor air vent, which I assume is how it got in the house. Even though I'm not exactly terrified of snakes in general, I decided I can't have it slither around the house either. So in my moment of panic, I seized the empty kitchen trash can, crept over to the snake and slammed it down, trapping it within. Then I realized I'm stuck, since I can't take my hand off the plastic trashcan or the angry thrashing snake will get out. So I ended up sitting on it until my brother got home. Being an Eagle scout, I figured he will know what to do.

He came home later to find me still sitting on the trashcan with the snake still giving an occasional thump from within its white plastic prison. After getting a good laugh about the ridiculousness of the situation, he got a piece of cardboard and slipped it under the trashcan. Then he duct taped it securely to the trashcan and flipped it over, securing the cardboard in place with even more duct tape. We left it outside, hoping the cooler air will calm down the cold blooded animal. The next day, my brother took it to his biology teacher who is an expert and lover of snakes. The snake turned out to be a harmless rat snake and it was released back into the wild, far away from my home.

As for my house, I called an exterminator the next day to check out the crawl space and he found an air duct had fallen down, which was how the snake got in the house. Luckily there were no more evidence of snakes and the duct was quickly fixed. We haven't had any more problems since, but I still get the willies when I think about the whole incident. To be honest, I didn't even think about the whole poisonous aspect at all when I was intent on catching it. I guess that wasn't too smart, but I was in panic mode. My family still jokes that I must've watched too many episodes of "Croc Hunter" and "Jeff Corwin Experience" on Animal Planet.

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

OP here. Thank you all for your responses. We are now pretty sure it was a rat snake. We plan on having someone out in the very near future to check out the house for others. Also yes I did panic when I saw it but I knew it wouldn't get the snake out so I remained cool until it was dead. THEN I had a panic attack.

If it was a rat snake, I would be more concerned about what it was looking for in your house I would set out mousetraps ASAP.

Two summers ago, DH ran over a large black rat snake while mowing grass. That was okay with me, as the thing had taken to hanging out under the carport. Ever since, we've had trouble with field mice. Never saw even droppings while this snake was around. Then last year, my MIL killed a baby black rat under my carport because the mistakenly thought it was a copperhead. I was actually disappointed because I would rather have 1 non venomous snake in the yard than lots and lots of rodents. I know alot of people would disagree with that .

 

[MulanUSAF]

If it was a rat snake, I would be more concerned about what it was looking for in your house I would set out mousetraps ASAP.

Two summers ago, DH ran over a large black rat snake while mowing grass. That was okay with me, as the thing had taken to hanging out under the carport. Ever since, we've had trouble with field mice. Never saw even droppings while this snake was around. Then last year, my MIL killed a baby black rat under my carport because the mistakenly thought it was a copperhead. I was actually disappointed because I would rather have 1 non venomous snake in the yard than lots and lots of rodents. I know alot of people would disagree with that .

Personally, I prefer the cute and purring type of rodent exterminator than the scaly, slithery kind. But you are right, rat snakes deserve their place in the world for all the rodents they take care of. When we got rid of that snake in our house, we had some mice problems for a bit until we got a cat. Now we deal with disemboweled rodent parts all over the deck. Ugh.

 

[IdesOmarch]

If it was a rat snake, I would be more concerned about what it was looking for in your house I would set out mousetraps ASAP.

Two summers ago, DH ran over a large black rat snake while mowing grass. That was okay with me, as the thing had taken to hanging out under the carport. Ever since, we've had trouble with field mice. Never saw even droppings while this snake was around. Then last year, my MIL killed a baby black rat under my carport because the mistakenly thought it was a copperhead. I was actually disappointed because I would rather have 1 non venomous snake in the yard than lots and lots of rodents. I know alot of people would disagree with that .

I agree with this, luckily the only snakes I ever see in our yard are Kingsnakes and black snakes, which I believe catch rats, and I never kill. I've never seen a poisonous snake in my yard. Poisonous snakes in our area are fairly rare, we have copper heads and cottonmouths which are fairly common, but rarely seen here. THere are also several kinds of rattle snakes in our state, but I've never seen one, and supposedly the Coral snake is listed in our state, but extremely rare. I think rattle snakes are more common in the western U.S. We have timber rattlers and the ones that blend in well with rock formations, but I've never seen one in the wild.

 

[rie'smom]

Me too!
I don't know what I thought the rest of the story would be... maybe here's what i found in my WDW resort room!!!

And please, if anyone has found a snake in their resort room, DO NOT tell me! Ignorance is bliss

Claire

You might not want to read this about someone finding not only a snake but a snake's nest as well in their room at the Contemporary, scroll down to Wow, what a trip:
http://jennkey.blogspot.com/search?...-max=2009-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=43

Also, my friend Elaine's daughter was bitten by a snake at CBR a few years ago. They were walking to the pool and her daughter not paying attention walked off the sidewalk and into the edge of a flower bed. A pygmy rattler bit her and she ended up in the hospital for a couple of days.
Keep your kids away from flower beds as pygmy rattlers as well as other snakes like to stay in the mulch. My cousin, an emergency room doc, says in Spring when people are working in their flower beds, he sees snake bites all the time. The snakes are there through the year but Spring is especially bad with people working in their yards.