Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Caught this snake this morning as it made a break for our open front door. We live in Northwest Florida.

My best guess before I started second guessing myself was that this is a young banded water snake. Anyone else?

It's about a foot long and about a half inch thick. Doesn't appear to like the pool of water and minnows in the temporary terrarium. I thought water snakes liked water. LoL

another image

After doing more research and looking at photos of snakes, it appears to be a corn snake and not a water snake as I thought before.
*confused*

...and a pretty little one.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

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Yeah, that's a nice little corn snake. Just for reference (and you've probably heard this anyway), you can look for keeled scales to see if something is a water snake or not. I don't know if *all* of them have that feature (and over-generalizing is a bad idea ), but it's at least common to many species.

-P
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1.0.0 Normal corn snake (Frito)
1.0.0 Creamsicle corn (Tang)
0.1.0 Ghost corn (Raynham)
1.1.0 Bay of LA rosy boas (Rivet and Cali)

It is true that the watersnakes, genus Nerodia, have keeled scales, but the ratsnakes are not exactly smooth scaled. The middorsal rows of scales are weakly keeled. Examples of smooth scaled snakes are the racers, whipsnakes, indigoes & king snakes.

~~Greg~~

This is unfortunately not a water snake, it is a corn snake. These are one of the most common kept snake in the world. So if you are planning i=on keeping it, you have made the right choise.
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-Emily: The snake gal

Well, we decided to keep it. It's amazing how much information is out there - thank goodness. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on since lastnight. I realized after making my initial post that is was in fact a corn.

I fed him/her(have yet to determine sex) a thawed pinkie a little while ago, and it went to town. Now it's back under the hide on the warm side.
I have to find a rep vet around here, and have the snake checked just to make sure. (visual inspection didn't reveal any scars, mites, damage, etc..) We've been researching bearded dragons for a month or two in order to purchase one in a couple weeks or so, so finding a good rep vet in town is next on the list anyway.

It looks like it was born earlier this year. It has likley been eating anoles or med geckos, but should take baby mice.
It probably is not parasitized yet, being so young, but its wise to have it checked.
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."