Ok, I live in Georgia, north Atlanta and we just found a snake laying on our front sidewalk. It was about three feet long, solid dark grey, with no distinguishing patterns or marks or (thank god) rattles. I have not been able to find a picture of it on the web yet, but does anyone have any clues before I go back out to try and wrangle it?
Hmm…well, redbelly snakes are frequently grey. But they should have some markings around the head and some degree of striping:
http://www.russjonesphoto.com/sitebuilder/images/image0089-735x493.jpg
Ringneck snakes can be gray, but as you can see, they generally have a ringed neck ( and both of these have very bright bellies ):
http://www.fototime.com/{E760989C-041A-4733-A27E-B11D4998A3F9}/picture.JPG
Maybe a plainbelly water snake:
http://www.nature.nps.gov/im/units/guln/networks/images/plainbelly_watersnake.JPG
- Tamerlane
Don’t let the absence of rattles delude you, not all venomous snakes have rattles and the rattles may not be that obvious, especially in younger animals.
Make sure it’s not a Cottonmouth. As you can see, their marking clarity and color can vary widely.
We have about four of these in our front yard (I also live north of atlanta). I don’t know what they are, but these seem to be harmless. At least, I’ve never heard about anyone being harmed by them.
Racers are the first guess-- they are solid colored, black or grey-ish, common around houses, diurnal, and harmless. They reach about 4 feet in length. Primary diet is lizards and some small rodents.
Queen snake. Two long stripes of yellow along the belly. Are you near water?
OP specified no markings-- still gonna go with racer. Lots of variation to be seen. All though are your basic unpatterned grey-to-black.
Just missed saving one of the Racer’s close kin yesterday-- five and a half foot Coachwhip had the ill chance to try crossing the road up ahead of me. Car in front of me ran over it, but it may have survived. Unfortunately, by the time I could stop at least three more cars and a truck had also run it over. Some of them I think deliberately maneuvered themselves into the snake. Idiots. It was a spectacular specimen-- when it was alive.
Not really near water, and we have had quite a few lizards visiting our front yard, so perhaps some racer came out of the woods looking for a snack. It doesn’t look EXACTLY like the one linked, but it is the same solid color, only this one was a really dark grey rather than pure black. If he returns, I will approach with caution, if only to send him out to the woods.
Thanks all!
Jeremiah.
No, that’s the bullfrog it ate.
You called?? 