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That TPWD isn't very well done. Herps oftexas.org is a better resource.

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Why you hate ursus so bad

Ha, in sure ursus has nothing to do with it, in just hating on their photos. Their timber rattlesnake is obviously not a Texas animal and likely from the northeast. Ours look way different.

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I think its both funny and sad that people are so afraid of snakes, and want to kill them.

I've been bit by several non venomous snakes, and it isn't any big deal...

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Agree 100%.

TL;DR warning: my neighborhood has a lot of snakes and people lose their damn minds over it and take a "KILL IT WITH FIRE" attitude towards the tiniest rough earth snake.

I live in Summerwood on the Upper East Side of Houston. We're right off Lake Houston, have a couple bayous and wetlands running through the neighborhood and not only do we have several thousand undeveloped acres of land that's heavily wooded and full of wetlands immediately adjacent to the neighborhood there's 2 pretty big county parks, a state park (Sheldon), and a big (1500ac) wetlands mitigation land bank that are wildlife refuges.

We have deer and wild hogs running through the neighborhood on a regular basis. Alligators frequently end up in the community lakes and mammals such as possum, raccoon, coyotes, and even the occasional bobcat are seen on a regular basis. I've never seen a rattlesnake (not surprising) and never seen a venomous snake in the developed areas but see cottonmouth, corals, and copperheads fairly regularly on our walks through the woods.

But the magnitude of the freak outs we get from people over snakes is astounding. The neighborhood Facebook pages are constantly full of people losing their damn minds over a rat snake in the yard- generally getting the "after" pics when some yokel goes after it with a shovel- and the appalling number of people who see a rat snake or water snake and automatically say it's a copperhead (rat snake) or cottonmouth (water snake) is astounding. Especially among the people who claim "I spend a lot of time outdoors hunting & fishing and I know my snakes."

Right now there's a debate going that's probably 100 posts long because some dude posted a picture of a coral snake his neighbor killed in their driveway after almost stepping on it. The dude posted the picture on the Crime Watch page along with some long histrionic post about how coral snakes are so deadly. Well the admins removed it because, well it's not ****ing crime related and the guy came back with even more histrionics and predictably everybody piles on talking about how these snakes are a menace.

It's amazing.

Meanwhile, I've got to stop my 4-year old from trying to pick up every reptile & amphibian he sees (frogs, toads, and snakes) because I don't want him to go grabbing snakes without learning 100% for certain how to ID them. We were at a crawfish boil at a neighbors on Memorial Day and a rat snake went slithering across their drive but I had a little too much to drink to be quick enough to catch him. My 4-year old was so disappointed- in a deadly serious tone he told me "DAD! When you see a snake, you have to come get me so I can catch it."

What are the long back snakes up to 4 or 5 feet that have yellow stripes down the length of their body?

I have no particular love for the TPWD website. Half the time I end up telling folks to google TPWD plus whatever they are looking for.

Many photos drives assorted specialists, especially the herper, bonkers. Communications/web folks like pretty pictures, not always accurate pictures. And nice isn't even always a given.---A lot of times is depends on who they get permission from, and free usually wins.

Great post, 12f mane, thanks

Finn, that's my life every day this time of year. Especially this year with the flooding.

Walked out the door last Thursday to take my son to karate, and there was a commotion going in that you would have thought someone was getting killed (that is certainly a moderate possibility in nearby areas). Then I hear someone yelling "Aren't you some type of wildlife guy?" (the Ford with a big state emblem with "Wildlife" should be a dead give away). They were on the phone, crying with the cops. Sure enough, they had a 5' plus, really pissed off rat snake on their porch. It took a bit of creativity to move it, but still easy enough.

15 minutes later my wife called about a large snake on our back porch....if you saw the TPWD FB picture of the snake and dog, that is my back porch. My wife shot that photo and sent it to me in message. Teachable moment.

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What are the long back snakes up to 4 or 5 feet that have yellow stripes down the length of their body?

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The coloration you're describing sounds like a ribbon snake but they are never 4 or 5 feet. I'll put some pictures up later.

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I have no particular love for the TPWD website. Half the time I end up telling folks to google TPWD plus whatever they are looking for.

Many photos drives assorted specialists, especially the herper, bonkers. Communications/web folks like pretty pictures, not always accurate pictures. And nice isn't even always a given.---A lot of times is depends on who they get permission from, and free usually wins.

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Herpers have to be the worst about that sort of thing.

I'm not too familiar with snakes and I think it would be helpful if by each name you put poisonous or non-poisonous

I am a snake apologist, and while I dont have a lot of experience with then, I love the species and have a live and let live attitude.

We have a place at Texoma and I typically run into snakes quite a bit. So far I've seen ray snakes (he was swimming about 100 yards from the beach and came to the shore) copperheads, cottonmouths and yellow bellied water snakes. I've had trouble distinguishing the 2 latter snakes in the water As they can sometimes be seen tooling around our boat lift.

Can someone help me figure out a way to distinguish between the yellow bellies and cottonmouts? The pictures on page 1 look awfully similar and I know the mouth is a dead giveaway but I don't want to get caught in a bad situation and not be able to tell the difference. I've heard that one or the other swims with its head above the water, but I've also heard that may be a common misconception

I think cottonmouths have a dark stripe/bar under their eyes...

Cottonmouths have slitted eyes like a cat where water snakes have rounded pupils. Dead giveaway. Cottonmouths have a distinct "tail". Their fat bodies come to a hard taper, then you have a short small taper at the tail. Water snakes don't have the taper and have a long tail, not really noticeable as separate from the body. Cottonmouths have a black stripe through the eye on the side of their face that water snakes don't have. Finally, Cottonmouths have their heat sensing pits in addition to nostrils that water snakes don't have but these may not be easily seen if you are several feet away, which you would probably be.

Looking at those 4 water snakes: Yelowbellied Water Snake, Diamondback Water Snake, Broad Banded Water Snake, and Cottonmouth..... it is no wonder that people get confused. It is easy to tell looking at the pictures on your computer screen but not always that easy in real life. The Broad Banded stands out the most, followed by the Diamondback.

But if you are used to seeing Cottonmouths on a regular basis, they become pretty easy too, especially if they are floating in the water.

A while back I posted about seeing a water snake with a flat tip to its tail. I don't know if I identified it correctly in my post or not, but evidently it is a Yellowbellied Water Snake.

We always called the ribbon snake a garter snake. Is that another name for it or is a garter snake different?

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I am a snake apologist, and while I dont have a lot of experience with then, I love the species and have a live and let live attitude.

We have a place at Texoma and I typically run into snakes quite a bit. So far I've seen ray snakes (he was swimming about 100 yards from the beach and came to the shore) copperheads, cottonmouths and yellow bellied water snakes. I've had trouble distinguishing the 2 latter snakes in the water As they can sometimes be seen tooling around our boat lift.

Can someone help me figure out a way to distinguish between the yellow bellies and cottonmouts? The pictures on page 1 look awfully similar and I know the mouth is a dead giveaway but I don't want to get caught in a bad situation and not be able to tell the difference. I've heard that one or the other swims with its head above the water, but I've also heard that may be a common misconception

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Pit vipers all float on top of the water when the swim. Cottonmouth, copperheads, and rattlesnakes all float high in the water. Regular water snakes just have their heads out of the water.

Here's a cottonmouth- note the distinctive white/cream stripe along the eyes and the pit viper ridge above the eye.

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We always called the ribbon snake a garter snake. Is that another name for it or is a garter snake different?

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Same Genus, different snakes. Essentially sister species.

Thanks!

Thought I'd add a few pictures of other species of snakes in Texas.

Checkered garter. Abundant in much of south Texas and up into San Antonio and Austin. Plains as well.


Most common yard snake is the Rough Earth Snake. Completely harmless.



Not common, but around in patches including west Houston prairies- Prairie Ringneck Snake


I see a lot of requests for ID of juvenile racers. Tough to ID as they lose all their pattern as adults.

Juvenile


Adult racer


Speckled Racer. Protected snake with a very small range in Texas


Mudsnake. Fully aquatic and eat chiefly Siren.


Gulf Saltmarsh Snake. One of the few reptiles evolved to strictly brackish conditions.


Buttermilk racers from eastern Texas.

Someone needs to send this to gabe bock. Just saw he killed a nice looking king snake.

A couple months ago a storm was about to move in, so my 15 year old son took my 2 year old daughter out front to watch the clouds.

As soon as she stepped out the front door she took off running across the yard yelling "Lizard!" (she loves catching lizards). My son notices she is running straight towards a colorful snake so he sprints towards her and picks her up just before she grabs it.

He comes in the house with her and says "Dad, you're not going to believe this.you need to come outside" Sure enough, coral snake in the front yard.

It was average size at about 19 inches. It slid up into the landscaping rocks. When I removed the rocks, there he was all curled up in a nice little nest. I went ahead and killed him..don't feel great about it, but I didn't know someone who would re-locate at the time and the adrenaline was still rushing from knowing my daughter was about 1 second away from picking the sucker up.

I have since added a number to my phone of someone who will re-locate.

Anyway.TLDNR version..thankful that I taught my son how to identify a Coral Snake.

Coral snakes are always exciting to see and can pop up in some very urban areas.

Had a little speckled king (18-24") come in the garage last night, he and the cat were just hanging out looking at each other.

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It's a banner year for snakes by all accounts... I saw one of these sunning on the patio the other day, and had to look it up. Not my pic, the one I saw was blacker than this but I'm pretty sure it was a Texas long-nose snake:

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I thought "Red touches Yellow - Kill a fellow" This seems to be an exception.

It is.

The corals typically have a much more defined yellow band, and not the white spottinf mixed in. The heads are different. Look at the nose too, corals have a black nose, the long nose is red.

Saw a patchnose snake the other day out on the west side of Austin. First time I've seen one in quite a while.

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but can someone identify this snake? Me and the woman arguing between rat snake and copperhead.

rat snake

Yellow Lab Snake

AggieKO said:

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Sorry to dig up an old thread, but can someone identify this snake? Me and the woman arguing between rat snake and copperhead.

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Feel sorry for whichever one of you said copperhead. Also for the snake.

12f - you are a terrific part of this community - glad you're here hope you stay around a long time. You totally changed my view on snakes over the past few years. Learned a ton and you're always willing to help. Photos you post are top notch. You're the Caladan of snakes. Or maybe he's the 12fmane of binos. I'm not sure.

For the record she was the one that said copperhead haha.