They pose no threat to humans. New World rat snakes are found throughout North America. One species of rat snake is the corn snake , a docile animal and popular pet. As their name implies, rats are one of their favorite foods.
In the past two decades, the question of what is a rat snake has become increasingly complicated to answer. Until the early s, both Old and New World rat snakes were generally thought to belong to the same genus, Elaphe , according to Alan Savitzky, a professor of biological sciences at Utah State University who specializes in the biology of snakes. New technologies in molecular evolutionary studies have enabled scientists to look at the DNA differences between snakes, Savitzy told Live Science.
This has caused a great deal of upheaval in snake classification, and snakes are being moved into different genera. In , herpetologist Urs Utiger published findings in the Russian Journal of Herpetology and proposed reclassifying North American rat snakes as members of the genus Pantherophis. The proposal met with mixed reactions. Some authorities adopted the classification.
According to Reptiles Magazine , rat snakes can vary widely in appearance. They can have blotches, stripes, a combination of both, or be single-colored. They can be black, red, brown, yellow, gray or black-and-white colored. They have keeled scales, slender bodies, and wedge-shaped heads, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
Their pupils are round, as are most nonvenomous snakes'. Some species of rat snakes reach lengths of 10 feet, though 4 to 6 feet long is more common, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. According to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries , this is a shiny, primarily black snake.
It has a white chin and many animals have white bellies. When their skin is stretched, such as after a meal, a spotted pattern may be visible.
Spots might be white, yellow, red or orange. Bellies are sometimes checkered in gray, brown, white or yellow. Juveniles are blotchier and have white or gray bodies. Texas rat snake Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri or Pantherophis obsoleta lindheimeri. Their coloration varies somewhat by location, with snakes in eastern Texas being greyer while those in central Texas being yellower.
All Texas rat snakes have reddish orange skin beneath their scales. They tend to have white or grey bellies and grey heads. Texas rat snakes have splotchy patterns. Yellow rat snake Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata or Pantherophis alleghaniensis quadrivittata. According to the Cincinnati Zoo , yellow rat snakes are the most common rat snake in the Florida peninsula.
Make sure to weed whack. Be careful about watering your lawn. The more you water your lawn, the more often you have to cut it. Keep bushes and shrubs trimmed. This takes away some hiding spots in your yard. How to Fix It To get rid of snakes that are hiding out in cool and damp areas of your yard, you need to make each of these locations even less desirable as a snake habitat.
That includes pool noodles, piles of rocks, and woodpiles. Make sure to clean up your yard, so snakes have nothing to hide in or under. If you need to leave these items outdoors, keep them far away from your home and at the back of your property.
Lower the humidity in your garage or shed. Snakes might be attracted to the structures on your property if they notice that they go unused and are usually dark and humid. Fill any foundational gaps. Any area of your yard that mimics the climate of a cave is exactly what a snake is looking for. Foundational gaps or cracks in your home, garage, or shed, are just about the perfect home for many snake species. Simple gaps in your foundation can easily be filled with a putty knife and some cement mix.
How to Fix It Now, the obvious solution would be to feed your pets only indoors. Develop a feeding schedule. Though you might like your pets to be able to eat at all hours of the day, this is practically an open invite to any mice or rodents looking for a snack.
Make sure to put out small bowls of food at certain times of the day and bring in the bowls after a set period of time. Clean up any crumbs. Even if your dogs or cats are known to lick their food bowls dry, there still might be residual crumbs sitting in the bowl. Do your best to hose down the bowls when your pet is done eating if you plan to leave the bowls outdoors.
Keep the food bowls away from structures. That means a mouse is much less likely to venture out to your dog or cat bowls if you place the food bowls toward the middle of your yard. Even in a sealed bag, pet food is simply calling mice over to your home. Keep all bags of containers of pet food inside. Sources of Water Unfortunately, there are several species of snakes that seem to prefer and thrive in wet environments, including the all-too-common garter snake.
Though they like to spend a lot of time in the water, they also venture out onto land occasionally Water snakes tend to be a lot larger than the typical grass snake and can cause a lot more damage and risk to your property. These are areas where the grass or land is uneven and allows the build-up of water. Use dirt or soil to even out your land to reduce the formation of puddles. Raise your birdbaths. Though many species of snakes can climb trees with ease, raising the height of your birdbaths and keeping bids at a distance can reduce the chances of a snake finding its way into your birdbath.
Raise your birdbath, if possible. Keep fish ponds snake-free. Fish ponds are a great source of food for snakes that love water. Free Access to Your Yard A lot of times, snakes end up in yards because they can get into the yard.
That means you need to take the effort to block their access to your yard in every way possible. This can usually be done with some form of specialized fencing, but it can prove to be a little difficult if your yard or property is particularly large The extra fencing can be worth it, however, especially if it does keep snakes away from your property; How to Fix It The trouble with keeping snakes out of your yard is that they can easily squeeze through tiny holes in fencing and structures.
Since snakes can wriggle their way under most common fences that simply meet the ground, you want to install fencing that penetrates the ground a little bit. But by the time I'd had my sixth nocturnal copperhead encounter in a week, I knew this was different. All but one of the snakes were found within a few feet of the same spot on my nightly walk down the foot driveway to the mailbox, and the other was within 50 feet or so of the others.
Yep; a couple were within a few yards of where I'd seen five copperheads, and others are scattered over the acre-or-so lawn. Cicadas - "locusts" to most Texans. The woods vibrated with the sound of male cicadas thrumming their mating calls. Turns out, herpetologists and others studying snakes have only recently begun to document what appears to be a common, if previously little noted or studied, behavioral phenomenon among copperheads.
It's pretty amazing. And understanding what happens at night this time of year in yards and around camps and hunting lease trailers and other areas in copperhead range could go a long way toward helping folks avoid potentially painful and disconcerting encounters. Each summer, usually beginning around the first of June and continuing into September, cicada larvae that have spent their developmental period burrowed in the soil around the tree roots on which they feed, begin emerging for their metamorphosis into adults.
The larvae, looking like hump-backed beetles, begin digging their way to the surface around dusk. They emerge from the ground, crawl to the nearest vertical structure usually a tree , climb a foot or two up the trunk, their "shell" splits along its back and the adult cicada works its way out.
These nocturnal emergences of cicada larvae are like the opening of an all-you-can-eat dinner for some wildlife. Yellow-crowned night herons are one of the species that regularly prey on emerging cicada larvae. Copperheads are another. And when the cicada dinner bell rings, it can draw a copper-colored, fanged crowd.
As darkness falls on a summer evening and cicada larvae begin emerging, copperheads head to their feeding stations. The snakes take up stations at the base of trees or among the exposed roots where they easily pick off lumbering cicada larvae aiming to climb the trunk.
And the diner can get crowded. Every copperhead within crawling distance might congregate around prime feeding spots. How many? Herpetologists have over recent years discovered and documented several of these nocturnal gatherings of cicada-gobbling copperheads. Probably the most astonishing example of such nocturnal copperhead gatherings has come from a tract near Sweeny in Brazoria County.
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