Word of warning

[Jay Wilson]

This slitherer lived on or around my benches for a couple of years. Used to scare the crap out of me when I'd pick up a pot and then see it. I'm for the most part a live and let live person when it comes to nature...... As long as it's not venomous.

Edit: Now this is weird. I haven't seen this snake for at least a year..maybe two. I posted this this morning and went out to play with my trees. About the third box I tilted up to look under. There was the snake. Go figure.

 

[Paradox]

Looks like a corn snake. Almost looks like it could have been someones pet that got loose or was released.

 

[Attila Soos]

Edit: Now this is weird. I haven't seen this snake for at least a year..maybe two. I posted this this morning and went out to play with my trees. About the third box I tilted up to look under. There was the snake. Go figure.

Yes, it's a corn snake. They make great pets, my neighbour has one, and the kid brings it over to us for my kids to have fun with it.

 

[milehigh_7]

I just came in from looking at my trees as I like to do at night and I counted and killed no less than six full size black widows and gobs of babies. Yes this was under my benches... GRRR stupid Las Vegas.

 

[Bill S]

Tom we do get the brown recluse in Mass, don't loose your arm.

Aren't wolf spiders the ones that really can jump, we have a ton of varieties around western Massachusetts, the oddest one I have seen was yellow and white, and pretty good sized. Snakes can be a hazard, rattlers, copper heads, water mocasins. Nothing like stepping on a ground nest of hornets.

 

[rockm]

I love Northerners who say they have water moccasins... The species doesn't range further north than S.E. Va. on the east coast and no further north than Southern Indiana to the west. They are not native to New England

Sorry for busting your hump, but I had a run-in with a woman at a local nature reserve here who was actually SCREAMING about a "WATER MOCCASIN.....WAAAAAAAATER MOCCASIN...." in a pond. It is something of a pet peeve of mine. That woman kept demanding that someone DO SOMETHING about the WAAAAAAAAATER MOCCASIN.

Now, being of Southern extraction and having actually seen water moccasins growing up in Texas, I knew the snake she was having a hissy fit over was just a harmless brown water snake. I went over, picked the thing up (it bit me in the process as water snakes are pretty agressive) and took it over to an area where it could go on in peace. She nearly fainted, but mercifully shut up...I just said "ain't no water moccasin...They don't live around here."

 

[Bill S]

The scar on my finger where it bit me says otherwise, I don't know of another black snake with fangs that fits the description.
The scar coming from the ranger that used the snakebite kit to cut from one punture to the other to remove poison. Sure looked like the pictures. You aren't the only one that has told me this, not sure of an explanation. My grandfather told me he had seen one, and I still remember him saying he really thought it was one due to the way it kept trying to bite, as in very aggressive.

Typically none of these would be a huge danger as the rattler would be most problematic, but usually found more to the hills we call mountains here, so it would need to be a "country " kind of event to find one.

 

[rockm]

Nope. Not a moccasin. You can bank on it. Too cold up there for them. It's too cold HERE in No. Va. for them. They are a deep south, swamp and heat loving species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_moccasin

Brown water snakes and Northern water snakes are agressive, common and often mistaken for moccasins. They have a very wide range
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Water_Snake

Brown phase young timber rattlesnakes are often dark and have fangs, but even then you would have had memorable reactions to such a bite. The old torniquet, cross-incision, suck the poison out treatment was extremely faulty (which is why it is no longer recommended by medical authorities). You simply can't get the venom out using that procedure...

If it were a moccasin bite, the ranger's "treatment" would hardly have been enough. Moccasin bites can pack a wallop. You would have severe swelling (I mean SEVERE swelling) even with the treatment and other pretty nasty stuff.

Moccasins are not really black --(they're greenish black with yellowish bellies and whitish markings on their lower half of their heads) and are pretty unmistakeable snakes. They are generally large and chunky, not slender.

 

[milehigh_7]

Hey don't you guys care that I had a bunch of black widows last night??? *sniff* I like snakes...

Did I mention that the last one I killed had a body the size of a shooter marble??? EWWW!

 

[milehigh_7]

However, if you want to talk snakes about three years ago, we were in Sedona at slide rock and my son and another boy had found a water snake earlier in the day. So they bring me another little snake and say, "Hey look another water snake!" They were holding it just behind the head so it could not get away. I start looking at it and I say, "Boys, don't let go. You need to go away from the little kids and kill that." They were upset and asked me why. I said, "That's no water snake it is a baby rattler." Worse yet it turned out to be a Mohave which is widely considered the most deadly snake in the US... I just shook my head and they took care of it. Strangely they did not play with anymore snakes that whole trip.

 

[tmmason10]

Tom we do get the brown recluse in Mass, don't loose your arm.

Geez, don't jinx me or anything Bill....

 

[Bill S]

Sorry Tom, just wanted to make sure you knew they are around, didn't mean to add to the heebie jeebies.

Clyde was it all gookie, bet you felt better after.

rockm, it swelled and hurt, the docs didn't do any anti venom, thats probably most telling I guess, and I do know now that the ole cut it and suck it out is faulty. Looking at the pix I'd say you are right, it was loong ago and the western version seems close, but at this point it's a who knows. It was a wierd thing too, some kid hooked it and was bringing it to him, when I saw the snake I went closer, as it tried to bite the kid(6 or 7) I grabbed at it, and it chomped down on my finger, maybe the holes came from shaking it off???????? At this point I'll stand on I tried to help the kid, and some damned snake bit me, wonder if it survived

Jim Stafford for all you eeek it's a snake or spider haters - I don't like spiders or snakes, but that ain't what it takes to love me..........

 

[rockm]

"rockm, it swelled and hurt, the docs didn't do any anti venom"

Funny thing, even NON-venomous snake bites can be uncomfortable and swell sometimes. Some non-venomous snakes have a protein in their saliva that can cause allergic reactions from simple itching to localized moderate swelling at bite sites. Most reptile mouths are FULL of bacteria, and that can cause slight infections too.

I've been bitten by a number of non-venomous snakes from plain North American old black and king snakes to boas and pythons (used to keep snakes when I was aiming to be a herpetologist in high school). Most left a welt, some (like the python) left teeth. Most itched for a day or so afterwards for me.

Also, FWIW:
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/wtrsnake.html

 

[Bill S]

Well that link about says it all, thanks. Seeing as I went to U Mass I'll have to take it as good info.

 

[Ariadne]

Dateline June 27, 2012:

Tom, the bonsaist loses arm to multiple recluse and Black Widow bites. Thought he didn't have any? Film at 11.

Cracking me up big time.

 

[tmmason10]

I am mostly joking about the arachnophobia, but perhaps this praying mantis will help out? Although, I wish it would hang out on one of my other trees and not my baby jade cutting tray...

 

[Dav4]

I love mantises...I saw one eat most of an anole (a small lizard for those who don't know) last October...delicious!!