Two days ago there was a snake coiled at the base of a tree by the gate into my yard. My dogs were barking, and I went to see what they were upset about and there was a snake, looking pretty calm. I called the dogs off and put them in the house, and told the snake he might want to find a new location. He didn’t seem to be a rattler, no thick tail, no arrowhead-shaped head.
Tonight the dogs were barking again, and now there are two snakes, apparently mating on the side of the same tree. Can anyone tell me if I’m supposed to be afraid? My location is Middle Tennessee.
The dark patches look like little saddles and, although it’s hard to make out, looks like there might be a faint pale outline around them. Compare to some corn snake morphs here. There are a lot of snakes with similar patterns, though, particularly juvenile rat snakes. Mating implies adult, however.
Notably, I’d say they are NOT copperheads. The patches on copperheads are a different shape, and often there seems to be a dot in the ale areas.
Look at the corn snake in the bottom picture on this page.
Thanks for alerting me, Crotalus. Snake sex in trees does seem to be developing into a running theme!
I concur, it/they do look like corn snakes to me.
Sex in trees is far less surprising to me when observed in corn snakes than those water snakes **Crotalus **linked to. Pretty much all the *Elaphe *group (now mostly *Pantherophis *apparently - I just can’t keep up!) are excellent climbers. As is demonstrated in StGermain’s picture of the rat snake on a tree trunk.
Corn snakes are a subset of rat snakes. As CannyDan alluded, all new World rat snakes used to be in the genus Elaphe. The group most commonly called rat snakes are (were) subspecies of the species Elaphe obsoleta. Black, gray, yellow, Texas and Everglades rat snakes are examples of these. Corn snakes were Elaphe guttata, and have been loosely referred to as rat snakes as well. One of the common names for the corn snake is red rat snake. Most of the snakes that old guys like Dan and me think of as Elaphe species have been renamed Pantherophis, primarily just to confuse old guys, I think.
ETA: it appears that the adoption of Pantherophis has not been officially approved by International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, so Dan and I can remain unconfused, at least on this narrow topic, for a while longer.
Phwew!! Good to know. I confess I didn’t check, just took the entry on Florida Museum of Natural History at face value. Now I see the asterisk. :smack:
There are just so-o-o-o many things to be confused about these days!
I am quite confident that these are not venomous. North American venomous snakes are pretty distinctively unlike those in your photo. And TN is not exactly the hub of exotic reptile import / export, so the chance of them being a pair of some unusual Asian viper (or whatever) is vanishingly small. Unlike, say, here, for instance.
CannyDan - I’ve killed three rattlesnakes in my yard, and had one dog bit by one. A co-worker said they were copperheads, but I was quite sure they were non-venomous. With acres of farmland and 14 animals, I worry about them.
Aw shucks, tweren’t nothin’. (looks away, scuffs toe in dirt) And besides,Crotalus got there first.
I do a lot of relocations of venomous snakes here, and that is the preferred option. But I recognize that this is not always possible, and your safety and that of your animals takes precedence.
I did warn them about the dogs, however.
