[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Paul; I grew up in an old farm house in an area that had a lot of farm land. While it was mostly used for corn and wheat there was a lot of prairie and savannah along the rivers. They used to hold annual rattlesnake hunts in an area about 5 miles away. I saw a lot of rats in the barn next door and a lot of garter snakes, but never saw a rattle snake or any snake that climbed up ladders.

I wonder if Qiviut's new "pet" rat snake was resting after a meal and hope that it finds a safe comfortable place outside where it can be useful patrolling for small damaging animals without bothering Q and Mom too much!

[Paul R.]

Ah, then you are not so negative toward the slitherers as I took it from your post. :-)

Pretty much all the rat snake family (includes corn snakes and so on) are good climbers and some even spend a lot of time in trees, both to hunt, and to avoid predators themselves.

An interesting factoid is that for a given size, king snakes’ constricting strength is about 2x that of their cousins, the rat snakes, or even snakes such as pythons — an adaptation to kill and eat other constrictors, it is thought. A good size king snake is darn strong!