Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Being a hillbilly I have seen alot of snakes, and how to identify them as poisonous or not. But a recent day at the canal flying a kite with my 4 year old son left me puzzled with a picture of a very strange snake. It was in the water(shallow), and prefered to stay there. It looked like a brown water snake till you got closer. It had a white stripe like a garter, un broken, down its back, with very large dots or spots. It was large, 4 foot or more and very thick. It had a flat head, triangular like a rattlesnake, and was not afraid. It did strike a few times as I attempted to pick it up with a stick, and was very good at getting away from me. Remember Im a hillbilly and have caught and handled much larger snakes in the wild before. It had a red tongue with a black tip. The tip of the toungue had two tips. It looked like a rattlesnake but had no rattle. It coiled and acted like a viper.......I have two pictures, and would really like to know what is living just twenty feet from my door as my son plays in the yard. I leave this to the experts, the closest match was a mexican rattle snake, but the dark spots werent defined enough. I live in Southern New Mexico, and have never seen the likes of this. This snake had several characteristics of a water, garter, and viper snake.

Your snake is probably a Checkered Gartersnake.

What did you mean by being a self-professed hillbilly? I have heard this pejorative term used by people in the rest of the US to refer to people from the southeast, but I have never heard someone use it to describe themselves - particularly someone from the SW US. Just curious.
-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I am originally from se Ohio. Some of my realitives prefered no running water, no inside toilets as they found them disgusting in the house. My Great Uncle actually trapped and fished for a living as far back as the 1980's, till he passed on. I have traveled the world due to the military and hunted and ate some pretty exotic things. Nothing big game, I dont own a gun, nor kill for sport. I prefer to leave footsteps in the woods, and take a plastic bag wherever I go when in the outdoors. I guess a hillbilly is someone who is comfortable in the woods, mountains, hills.

Environmentally friendly "hillbilly"!LOL......I wish there were more people that thought like you!.

best regards, ~Doug
-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Well sounds like for sure its nothing dangerous. If you live in New Mexico then there's now way its a cottonmouth, and copperheads are obvious and have no stripe down the back, and if it was a rattle snake you would know it for certain, especially at four feet. It may have just been a really, really big garder or ribbon snake. Can you post pictures?

Hello and thanks for the reply, I have posted one not so good pic, as I had already made the snake mad, I blew it up and it does look wierd. I think its size threw me off. It was heavy for a snake. Im pretty sure it was a checkered garter as mentioned in othe post. But if you have any other ideas I would be glad to hear them, I think I have found a new hobby......I did not know how many different snakes there was here in the Las Cruces, NM area. Thanks.

Oh I see it now. Definitely a checkered garter snake. They can get pretty big for garters, that's for sure.