A week ago yesterday, I let the dogs out to do their business and stepped out on the porch with them. It was a nice, sunny day. To my left, I caught a glimpse of black where there should be no black. I looked over and did a double take. There was a very large snake draped on the porch rail, sunning itself. Sandy, the pet dog, took one look and ran back inside. Amber, the Standard Poodle, started to sniff but I shooed her away.
A closer look showed that the snake was not poisonous. With the coloring, it could only have been a water moccasin and it was too far from water, didn’t smell like rotting fish, and was pretending to be part of the rail. Moccasins are very aggressive.
I went in and got my camera. I took a couple of pictures and started to kneel down to get a better one. The snake decided I had gotten a little close for his comfort and left before I was finished. Here are the pictures:
A Texas Rat Snake, Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri, sunning on the porch rail.
Texas Rat Snake closeup of head
As you can see, his head is rounded and the wrong shape for a poisonous snake. This next photograph shows the colors of his body much better.
He is actually quite a pretty snake. The deck is four feet long and his body was double it, so he was a very large snake. I got closer and started to kneel down to get a better shot but the snake got nervous and left. He lives under the mobile home.
I sent the pictures to a herpetologist and was told this was a Texas Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri). Their coloring can vary from albino, or all white, to nearly all black. They eat large amounts of mice, rats, and other rodents. They also eat birds if they can catch some — this is mostly going up a tree and into a nest to eat the babies.
Texas Rat Snakes live in a wide variety of habitats and seem to be the coyotes of the snake world — able to live in places they shouldn’t be such as around houses in the city, but also at home in pastures, swamps, and near ponds. They can be aggressive and sneaky. Sometimes they coil like a rattlesnake and rattle their tails, knowing most creatures will think they are a rattlesnake and flee. Other times, they open their mouths and hiss like a cottonmouth water moccasin. Not much messes with them, and this mimicry helps the snake survive. However, around humans, it gets a lot of rat snakes killed. Most people don’t stop to look closely at something that may be poisonous, they just hit the snake with any blunt object they can reach!
That said, Texas Rat Snakes are beneficial and should be left alone. I have not had many problems with mice this winter, and they are usually a constant problem out here in the country. I imagine this guy is one of the reasons why.
This article is mentioned in the House of Herps Blog Carnival #9, the back to school issue.
