Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found this little snake in my garage early this morning. Please do not be mean because I killed it....I am deathly afraid of snakes and I have a 2 year old who does not need to think she had a new toy when she sees one of them. I live in South Carolina, I think it looks alot like a water snake but we are not even close to any water....please help...
Thanks in advance!!

harmless ratsnake
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roomates:
anery corn
normal corn
scarlet kingsnake
red milksnake
albino diamondback watersnake
Australian Cattle Dog "Pounder"

It's a Ratsnake that could have helped prevent your two-year-old from contracting one of the thousands of diseases that are carried by rodents.

Next time call a snake removal service. Your local Fire Dept can direct you to one.
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Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
4.3.0 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.1.0 Everglades Rat Snakes
1.0.0 Baird's Rat Snake
0.1.0 Trans-Pecos Rat Snake
0.1.0 Amel Pacific Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Het Amel San Diego Gopher Snake
2.0.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake
0.1.0 Amel Sonoran Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
2.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (River Road)
0.1.1 California Kingsnakes
0.1.0 Thayeri Kingsnake
0.0.1 Florida Kingsnake
1.0.0 Boa Constrictor
0.1.0 Dumeril's Boa
1.1.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican & Mid Baja)
1.1.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
0.1.0 Tangerine Honduran Milksnake
1.0.0 Honduran Milksnake
1.2.0 Ball Pythons
1.0.0 Woma Python
1.1.0 Cape York Spotted Pythons
1.1.0 Macklot's Pythons
0.0.1 Ribbon Snake
1.0.0 Western Hognose
1.0.0 Yellowtail Cribo
0.1.0 Blacktail Cribo
0.0.2 Northern Ringnecks

LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
1.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
2.3.0 Leopard Geckos
1.0.1 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
0.1.0 Chuckwalla
0.1.0 Banded Gecko
FROGS
2.2.0 Southern Bell Frogs
1.0.1 Green Tree Frogs
1.0.0 Striped Walking Frogs
1.1.1 White's Tree Frogs

I agree, it's a baby rat snake, AKA "chicken snake", a harmless rodent eater. In SC, adults are either solid black (black ratsnake) or green/grey with a striped & blotched pattern ("greenish" ratsnake), or green/yellow with 4 stripes (yellow ratsnake). Black ratsnakes are found inland. Yellow ratsnakes are found on the coast. Greenish ratsnakes are found in between the ranges of the black ratsnake and the yellow ratsnake.

PB

not mad at you but killing a snake because your afraid of them is like people whom hit their brakes to look at an accident on the side of the road and back traffic up for miles or people that still call black folks the "N" word... its just shows total ignorence! no offence to you but stop killing then asking and try taking a picture and then ask us! or broom it outside! JB

Not to mention the fact that it takes much more energy to kill a snake and dispose of the body than to just move a living snake off of the property. I hope the OP doesn't let his or her irrational fear of harmless wildlife brush off on the daughter. That would certainly be a shame.

Honestly, I find it kind of foolish to come on board for people with an appreciation for wildlife and expect them not to be upset or offended when you post a picture of a harmless, helpless animal you just killed. I suggest you buy a good field guide and learn to identify the venomous snakes in your area and leave the other ones alone. And if you do happen to encounter a venomous snake, don't kill it! Call the fire department and they will remove it for you or direct you to someone who can.

Snakes are an essential, beneficial part of just about every ecosystem in the US and should not be killed for no reason (not that any animal should be killed without reason, however).
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- Natalie
(San Francisco Bay Area)

1.0.0 Banded California King
1.0.0 Mexican Black King
0.0.1 Goini Kingsnake
1.0.0 Bay of LA Rosy Boa
0.0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.2.0 Rubber Boas

Well said all (especially Fish).

It takes a minimum amount of effort to identify the vens from the no vens in your state.

As for the fear--get over it. Any mature person can. It just takes the aplication of intelligence over irrational fear.

Doubt it? Think of all the traffic deaths on your state roads....yet I'll bet you still drive. Next to that snake fear is a lot less compelling.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

by venomous reptiles because they are trying to kill them to irradicate their species from their area. You've just given your child a lesson in fear of snakes. This is a learned behaviour, not a natural born fear. You have just taught your child that you are terrified of snakes, therefore he/she must also be terrified of snakes. Now flash forward to him/her on their 12th birthday, outside having a bbq and one of their friends spots a rattle snake. Oh we've gotta kill that snake! Mom would, so lets kill it for her. They grab garden tools, and as you've learned im sure, snakes are quite fast, that rattle snake defends its life by biting one or two of your childs friends or even your daughter, what happens then? Is that the snakes fault too? must it die because it defended its life? Must that one have died because it had the unfortunate circumstance to have met upon you, a human who is much larger, much bigger and much more capable of harming it, than it was of harming you.

sorry, I feel you've earned much harsher words than what you've gotten to actually come onto a snake hobbyist board wanting us to identify a snake you've shown us a picture of after you've cut its head off. Grow up, get an education about your local animals, and don't ever post a picture of this nature on our site again, we don't take kindly to people who think it's "ok" to just kill an animal because it walked in front of us.

oh man, i just threw up a little bit. that was a rat snake. they help cut down on the amount of mouse crap we ingest every year. just so you know, if you ever come across another snake, the venomous snakes in north america are not very aggressive (they will not jump up and bite your neck) so they are easy to sweep outside with a broom or into a bucket to be identified later.

Bravo,.....I couldn't have said it better myself.......Kinda like hitting someone in the head with a shovel, then asking them if it hurt..............D. Mong

Why is it that everybody has to first kill any snake they see, THEN wonder about what kind it is! Here is some good advise to anybody EVER reading this post.......get yourself a little cheap snake book that has the only FOUR kinds of poisonous snakes found in the US. Rattlesnakes, Water Moccasins, Copperheads, and Coralsnakes. Then when you learn what those four types look like, you can leave the other many hundreds of other kinds in the country the heck alone!!!!.......D. Mong