# I slew the snake **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 9, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179 "2009-06-09T02:21:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/1 "2009-06-09T02:21:54Z")
Gray, triangular head, yellow belly, 20" long. I didn’t get close enough to see the eyes. I went out with a flashlight tonight as is my want, and when I saw him sitting on the surface of the water garden, smote him with my [inject-a-tab.](http://www.lilypons.com/prodinfo.asp?number=92091) It broke on the rock liner of the pool. Note that it will cost me 40 bucks to replace it. Verily, he wriggleth yet, so I pulled him from the water and smote him mightily with a hoe, your basic Southern snake killing implement. Which also broke. The handle will probably cost less than $40.00. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/2 "2009-06-09T02:24:36Z")
But did you kill his Deputy? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/3 "2009-06-09T02:28:16Z")
> [@mascaroni](#): > > But did you kill his Deputy? Not yet. Maybe he will be in the concrete pool rather than the one with a liner, and I can shoot his ass. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/4 "2009-06-09T02:30:55Z")
Did you also ‘flog the dolphin’ and ‘slap the big-nosed Rasta-man’? ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/5 "2009-06-09T02:32:21Z")
You could claim it was in self defence… ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/6 "2009-06-09T02:35:21Z")
This snake was somehow a threat? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/7 "2009-06-09T02:37:04Z")
[What kind of snake](http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/?n=Snake.HomePage)? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/8 "2009-06-09T02:43:51Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > This snake was somehow a threat? Presumably a juvenile water moccasin. Poisonous, who would bite me on the hand while poking around in the pool, or on the ass while I’m hip deep in the pool moving planting tubs around. None of the pics in Johnny’s link have the triangular head. I’ve searched those images before. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/9 "2009-06-09T02:49:44Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Presumably a juvenile water moccasin. Poisonous, who would bite me on the hand while poking around in the pool, or on the ass while I’m hip deep in the pool moving planting tubs around. > > None of the pics in Johnny’s link have the triangular head. I’ve searched those images before. 🙂 Well, the cotton mouth and the water moccasin are the same thing, although Johnny’s link doesn’t show juvenile forms, AFAICT. [cite](http://www.wf.net/~snake/moccasin.htm) If it was a cotton mouth, then yeah, it was a threat all right. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/10 "2009-06-09T03:13:06Z")
The ice chopper is superior for cutting through the snake because the implement head aligns with the center of axis of the handle. A southerner wouldn’t know of this superior snake dispatcher. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/11 "2009-06-09T03:25:53Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > A southerner wouldn’t know of this superior snake dispatcher. You guys have snakes? Mrs. Plant brought a snow shovel here from New Hampshire, but no ice chopper. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/12 "2009-06-09T03:57:54Z")
Sounds like a [hognose snake.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodon_platirhinos) Possibly the most deadly of all snakes in the universe. They get the name “hognose” because they use their razor-sharp fangs to flense the faces off wild razorback hogs and use them to decorate their burrows, leaving the mutilated carcasses by the sides of state roads. Their venom is so fast-acting that it will kill you before you have time to die. It has been theorized that a single envenomation by a hognose snake may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Hognose snakes are also notorious arsonists, often burning down the houses of their victims and then making fraudulent insurance claims while posing as relatives. A Federal Trade Commission report indicates that hognose snakes are responsible for over 90% of credit card identity theft. Hognose snakes once shot a man just for snoring too loud. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/13 "2009-06-09T04:24:33Z")
Note that if it was a hognose snake it was completely hamless. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/14 "2009-06-09T12:40:07Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Hognose snakes once shot a man just for snoring too loud. Wow. He did the cotton mouth thing, rather than the turn over and pretend to be dead hognose thing. Thanks for the warning, though! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/15 "2009-06-09T13:56:32Z")
see, this is why you check for an ID first. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/16 "2009-06-09T14:53:52Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > [What kind of snake](http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/?n=Snake.HomePage)? My money’s on the ring neck. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/17 "2009-06-09T15:31:34Z")
If he were an innocent bystander, I’d say plainbelly watersnake or crayfish snake. He had that kind of coloration and was on the surface of the water, but I got a good look at the shape of his head before I hit him. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/18 "2009-06-09T16:36:29Z")
I don’t understand, **carnivorousplant, why you didn’t simply eat it.** ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/19 "2009-06-09T16:37:35Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Wow. > > He did the cotton mouth thing, rather than the turn over and pretend to be dead hognose thing. Thanks for the warning, though! 🙂 According to the “[temperament and defense](http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/Snake/HeterodonPlatirhinos#Gallery)” section of that site, the Hognose doesn’t start out by playing dead, but by mimicking a venomous snake: > [@](#): > > It will begin to flatten out its neck, revealing two large black spots on the neck. Although “primitive”, these black spots likely act as eye spots (a common defensive patterning found in a variety of organisms–ex. large spots on the wings of butterflies). As the defensive display continues, it may eventually flatten out almost its entire body. If touched, it will “false strike” with its mouth closed. Some specimens, however, will gape their mouths open and their strikes seem more intent on actually biting. If you still have the specimen you could (carefully) check for swinging fangs. The same site [recommends against killing cottonmouths](http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/Snake/AgkistrodonPiscivorus#Gallery) as well. I don’t mean to tell you who you have to share your living space with, it’s just that I hate to see any wildlife killed, and I come from a long line of ophidiophobes; my relatives have killed more snakes – and garden hoses, and extension cords – than most professional exterminators. So my default position is always “Don’t hurt it!” ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179/20 "2009-06-09T17:32:58Z")
Hey, it’s a water garden wherein I regularly stick my hands and sometimes feet. 🙂 I’m not killing the red eared sliders, just planning to trap and relocate. They eat water lilies. I’ve seen hognoses turn over on their back and flatten out. I thought they were playing dead. I don’t think they swim, though, and this guy was on the surface of the water. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-slew-the-snake/499179.md?page=2)