backyard critter

[GBob01]

Lil speckled kingsnake about 2.5 ft long

[4thIDvet]

I believe that is a 'Speckled Kingsnake' GBob01? Seems their is about a dozen different color variations of them. That is a beautiful snake. Here we have a King snake that looks exactly like a Coral snake.

" King snakes are non-venomous and constrict their prey, while coral snakes are venomous and have a neurotoxic venom that can cause paralysis and respiratory failure. A helpful rhyme to remember the difference in their color patterns is "red touching yellow, kill a fellow; red touching black, venom lack".

king snake vs coral snake - Google Search

Is a coral snake bite worse than a rattlesnake bite?
And that venom 'Coral snake', she said, is 20 times more toxic than rattlesnake venom

Sad because pin heads kill the King snake thinking its a Coral snake. They both eat rodents and should just be left alone.

[mrkalashnikov]

Where I grew up as a kid we had a LOT of snakes, all non-venomous. I used to catch them and bring them home to show my parents. I kept a glass terrarium on the porch I would put some of the better specimens in. Somehow, they always seemed to "escape" after a few days. 🤔

Nowadays I rarely spot one unless they are squashed on a road.

[Solid Snake]

Those are good for keeping the mouse population in check, correct?

[aviator]

My place in the island had a small pond with a stone fountain but it had been abandoned for years, so I had a crew drain it and fill it up with the same stones, sand and bring some gravel to make the driveway wider, I was watching them work on the security camera and they all started running around, I zoomed in and it was full of snakes, the main guy sent me a text with pictures, one was brown, I couldn't tell what it was the rest were black racers which are good snakes, they eat mice. But those guys were running like crazy.

[rto]

Cool looking snake. I haven't seen one with that unique coloration. We have the ones like in the picture that 4th posted and some with black and white bands.

[Sanders]

Never seen a speckled one like that, before. Kid texted me the other day saying their cats killed one. Dumb cats just see a piece of self-propelled string and don't know the difference between a good snake and bad one.

[44044]

I kill a bunch of snakes around my pond…

I don’t want them eating my goldfish

[Sanders]

I kill a bunch of snakes around my pond…

I don’t want them eating my goldfish

I had a photo somewhere I took of a snake eating a goldfish from someone's garden pond down the road. It was kind of cool. It was really weird when we had a black king snake catch a frog at a place I used to live. Frog was making weird noises and was halfway swallowed when I found the source of the noise. Made for a really funny looking critter to run across in the dark with a low-battery flashlight.