THREE LITTLE FOSSORIAL SNAKES

This afternoon my sister Sally, who was in town visiting her son's family, sent me a text saying they had found seven little snakes under stones that serve as a perimeter around a flower bed and a small tree in Matt and Beth's front yard.  It didn't take long for me to get on the road headed that way.

The stones had been replaced after the slender reptiles had slithered out of sight. As the stones were lifted again, we found three of the snakes.  I was delighted to hold my first snakes of 2015.  It was hard to get all three heads in focus at the same time, but here are two in the photo below.

It was soon apparent that we had two species of snakes here.  They were a little squirmy, but the cool weather tamed them a bit.  The slimmer snake on the right is a fairly young Dekay's Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi), maybe a year or two old.  The paired small dark spots along the back are a common characteristic of this species. These spots are sometimes connected.  Another diagnostic feature is the dark crescent marking near the back of the head.  These snakes eat soft-bodied insects and worms. In searching for food they actually help aerate the soil and even add a little fertilizer with their waste.  They are healthy for your garden!  

Here you can see the slight connection between some of the paired spots on the Dekay's Brown Snake as well as the crescent marking along its jaw-line.  The other two snakes are Rough Earth Snakes (Virginia striatula).  They seemed to be very mature snakes at about 12" long and a bit heavier bodied than the brown snake. The Rough Earth Snakes have a uniform brownish gray body with a creamy colored belly.  Their scales are keeled (having a ridge in the center of each scale) which gives them a bit of a "rough" texture when held.  Earth snakes share the same diet with the brown snakes and are good for your garden.  Both species are fossorial in that they prefer to stay hidden under rocks, logs, leaf litter, etc. 

The Dekay's Brown Snake has a bit more of a "neck" that separates its head from the rest of its body.  It has dark markings on top of its head and also has keeled scales.

Both of the Earth Snakes had a number of small pick-like wounds along their bodies.  It made me wonder if a cat had "played" with them over the years.  Notice the more pointed nose of the earth snake (below) in comparison the the rounded nose of the brown snake (above).  The Rough Earth Snake has a very thick neck or no neck at all!  Both of these snake species get no longer than 12 to 13 inches and are perfectly harmless. They do not grow up to be copperheads or pythons!  They are perfect reptile creatures for introducing to your children or grandchildren.

Labor Day weekend 2013 - Spiders and Snakes!

I found some neat things in the yard this weekend.  I hope Ethan and Caleb will like looking at these critters.



This is a mother Wolf Spider carrying her egg sac.  It is attached to the end of her abdomen.  Wolf Spiders have four pairs of eyes.  Can you see some of her eyes on the black stripes of her head?  Wolf Spiders are hunters and do not build a web to catch their prey.  They can see well at night as they look for insects in the grass.

This is an Orb Weaver Spider in her web that she builds each night and takes down during the day.  This spider is known as a Cross Spider and sometimes as a Barn Spider.  They often have two white spots at the rear of their abdomen. Can you see them?  In late summer the females get large from a season of feeding on insects of all sizes.  Recently I saw a Cross Spider with a dragonfly in its web that was at least twice the size of the spider.  She finished eating it in less than a day. 



This is a Green Lynx Spider that a coworker found behind the lab a few weeks ago.  It is missing a couple legs.  It is a male spider which we can tell by the two short pedipalps that have "club" shaped ends.  Look at the area at the top of its head.  Maybe you can see a row of four small eyes with two larger eyes beneath those and two more smaller eyes below and between the larger pair of eyes.  These guys are not venomous to humans.  They are ambush hunters and wait in the bushes to catch passing insects.  They use the spikes on their legs to help hold their prey.  At one time they were used in cotton fields to eat insects that damaged the cotton plants.

This is the spider that used to scare me.  Now I respect it and watch it carefully.  They are venomous and can hurt us if they bite us.  But they are fairly slow when they walk and I just try to pay attention.  Your great grandmother (Mana) collected two of these spiders for me to take to the museum in Raleigh for other people to see.  I have seen her move them carefully to the field away from her house.  Most people just kill them.  I like it that I am not so afraid of them now.

This is the under side of the mother Black Widow.  The red hour-glass shaped spot is a definite identifying mark of this spider.  The "globe" shape of its abdomen is also a characteristic of black widows.



This is a young Eastern Worm Snake.  They usually have a medium gray back with a light pink belly.  They eat earthworms and slugs.  They will try to "burrow" between your fingers when you hold them.  Sometimes they will drag the pointy end of their tail across your hand.  They usually grow to about 11 inches or so.  They are fun to look at and to hold.  They are very squirmy so it will tickle you a little.  They do not harm people.



This is an adult Rough Earth Snake.  They live in the same places that Worm Snakes live, under rotten logs and wet leaves.  This snake is similar in color to the Worm Snake but has a creamy colored belly.  It also has keeled scales.



If you look closely, you can see the little ridge on each scale.  There is another Earth Snake that lives in North Carolina.  It is called the Smooth Earth Snake.  Each of its scales is smooth and does not have a ridge (keel).  The eye of this individual is cloudy looking.  It will probably be shedding its skin soon because it has out grown this one.



I found this Southern Copperhead snake behind our house earlier this summer.  They are venomous so you don't want to handle them.  They have an attractive color pattern that helps them hide in old leaves.  Their eye pupils are not round like non-venomous snakes, but vertical pupils.  Notice that the snake has darker bands across its body and that the band is narrow along its spine and gets wider as it goes down the sides.  We saw two last year, but many years we don't see one at all.  Often they will vibrate their tail in the leaves to warn that they are nearby.  They would rather bite something they are going to eat (like a mouse) than waste their venom on something big like us.