Posted on 05/09/2009 5:27:52 PM PDT by humblegunner
This afternoon I happened to look out the back and saw something
black and long in the middle of the yard. I just mowed yesterday
so I knew the yard was free of sticks and such.
Turns out it was a big black snake!
He isn't a rattler, does not look loke a water moccasin or a black snake.
What the heck kind of snake is he? He has the triangular head which
means he is a bad one, but I can't place his breed.
Anyway, photography being as dangerous as it is, he got wrecked up some
which is just as well. He might have bitten one of the animals.
So who knows any herpetology?
I have two cats and a geriatric dog.
No snakes allowed.
Looks like “dead snake syndrome”.
“Just north of Houston.”
I’m a former Houstonian. I thought your pictures looked like St. Augustine grass! I bet it was a cottonmouth.
The first two “fish” I caught as a little child were cottonmouths. I don’t remember if it was at Sam Houston State or Dave Crockett State Park. My mom cut off their heads with a machete. I had quite the mom!
Dead.
Damn! I bet your right! How forgetful of me.
Blue Racer. It is a GOOD snake. I wish I had more of them. Too bad some idiot killed it.
That is the very rare dead snake.
Commonly found in urban areas where they are happened upon by humans.
Wish I had used the shotgun.
I cracked the handle on my shovel.
Looks similar to the one-eyed trouser snake that I have........
The shape of the head sure looks like it’s in the Pit Viper family, which would make it a Cotton Mouth/Water Moccasin, IMHO.
Probably just a variant of a black rat snake. There are only four types of poisonous snake here, cottonmouths, rattlers, copperheads and coral snake. You can rule out coral, rattler and copperhead. That head doesn’t appear to have the huge venom packing jaws normally seen on a poisonous snake. As for water moccasin, almost everyone I’ve seen has a very distinct wide arrow-shaped head. But, even the harmless snakes can have a slightly arrow-shaped head.
You can also tell if he’s poisonous if it has vertical pupils and heat pits just past his nostrils. If they’re round pupils with no heat pits, you’ve got a non-poisonous snake. Too, if you’re sure his bite reflex has stopped, you could always open up his mouth and look for fangs. ;-)
Black Mamba. They were imported to south texas to kill off rattle snakes and it worked. They grow really big.
that there ain’t no blacksnake- some kind of cottonmouth
The Blue Racer is a long, fairly slender snake with back, sides and belly colored plain black.
Nope, the underside of this one is yellow.
And the idiot has animals to protect.
You know a severed snake head can still bite, right?
Bury that thing if you haven’t.
Pry open its mouth; does it have fangs?
I killed two of those in my garage last year. Cotton mouths that came from the pond across the street. Very aggressive, they tend to come at you, instead of away from you. I like them better dead.
Blue racers have yellow bellies. You are totally clueless.
Yep, he has fangs.
He showed them to me before he had an unfortunate accident.
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