Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A friend of mine who knows my love of snakes, sent me these pictures of a pretty fellow she found in a tree in her yard. She lives on Panama City Beach, FL. I was quite certain he's a black racer, but for one, I wanted to share the beautiful pictures she snapped, and for two, just wanted to make sure that's what he is.

Of course, when she was done snapping the pictures, she left him alone in his tree. That's one reason I just love her, hehe.
No smushed snake here. ^_^

-----
Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan) (Deceased )
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Yes, a very nice black racer too.
-----
What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Your identification is correct. ~~Greg~~
Florida's Venomous Snakes

first off, yes. Black Racer. Other people said so I almost didn't respond but something caught my attention... it's in a tree!

Maybe your Racers are different than mine but they seem so clumsy off of the ground. I have read many times that they are not good climbers and occasionally will flee to the lower branches of a bush only when they feel threatened. When I try to catch them they sometimes flee to a small shrub or something at which point they are a heck of a lot easier to catch! I'm left to wonder what it was doing up there. The only time I have ever seen a racer actually climb a tree was right after a group I was in taped a radio transmitter to its side. I think it felt like something was grabbing its tail so it just went higher and higher. Nobody I've ever spoken to has seen anything like it or ever encountered a racer off the ground except right after its released or as it's being chased after by a herpetologist. Cool!

I see our local black racers in trees or on fences quite a bit. One news anchor I work with found one in her second-story apartment, it had apparently climbed in through the window.

See, you need to feed the ones near you some Wheaties, like we do. ^_^
-----
Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan) (Deceased )
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

The only racer I've peronally seen "in the wild" in the last few years was about 6 feet off the ground, weaving it's way through a chain link fence. It MAY have been harassed by someone moments before I got there.

This was in Florda City, Florida. (A few miles from where the Florida Keys start).

The handful off times I've seen them before that, they were on the ground and darted for the nearest tall grass or into low bushes.

But then, I would be much less likely to notice them in the trees...

They seem to love anoles, so it would make sense that would do a little climbing now and then.
-----
What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Yes, as some of the other's have already mentioned, I live in central Florida, and have seen TONS of Black Racers in my area, and have also seen them climbing through, and cruising the top rail of MANY chain-link fences on their own totally undisturbed. They were ALL no doubt looking for Brown Anoles which are VERY abundant on just about every single fence, or bush, or tree for that matter throughout the centralFlorida/south Florida area. I've also witness them crawling in low-lying branches of trees too. Not long ago, I saw one cruising along the flower bed along side my house, so I slowly crouched down so it wouldn't get spooked, and just sat there to see what it was doing. The racer slowly ascended up into a bush still totally unaware of my presence, not even knowing I was there as I stood motionless. A few seconds later I heard a big crashing comotion coming from inside the bush he just crawled up into, and down he came crashing to the ground with a big Brown Anole in it's mouth which he quickly consumed. I was in awe at what I just witnessed, and walked away with a big smile, and thought, wow, I just saw a rare glimpse of nature at it's very best!

Anyway, oh yeah!,.....they do climb from time to time..LOL!

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

I wonder if it's just a Southern thing... We definitely don't have Anoles up here or any other tree lizard for that matter. In fact, we only have 1 lizard and it's endangered and only lives in two locations. It would make sense though, the best foraging around here would be voles and short-tailed shrews so there isn't any reason for them to do much climbing in VT. Yesterday I had a chance to visit our only verified racer den site and we caught the first one to emerge this year. I wasn't there today but the rest of the group who stayed was able to watch a few others emerge from the den itself this morning. Anyway, this is a photo of the first one caught yesterday. The photo was taken right after we released it and it climbed about 4 feet up the branch of a Hemlock and stayed put for a while.

Our racers in Tennessee seldom climb, either- in fact, I can't recall ever seeing a racer in a tree here. Ratsnakes and rough greens, of course, and the occasional black king, watersnake, or copperhead is about all you're likely to find in trees here.

We have arboreal lizards here, but not in anything like the density they reach in Florida.

BTW, did anyone see Burbrink et al.'s new paper on racer systematics? They didn't make any taxonomic recommendations, but they found the peninsular Florida racers were distinct from other southeastern populations.

Cut and paste to see paper:
http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/954.pdf

Since I've only lived in southern, and central Florida all my life(48 years), I've never even seen any Racer's other than Coluber c. priapus in the wild, so it could be more of an adaptive trait more often seen in the southern subspecies(priapus), since the VERY abundant Brown Anole favors an arboreal existence unless jumping off their vantage point to grab insects which they are extremely prone to do. Anoles seem to makeup an extremely large portion of their diet in this region, they are literally EVERYWHERE you look here, and I often stumble trying to avoid stepping on them at times..LOL!

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

As a South Florida resident, I would agree. I think probably at least 50% of my sightings of black racers have been off the ground, usually between 3 and 6 feet up in dense shrubs. Pics below of a little guy who was living in my yard for two years. Sadly, one week after this picture, I found a racer D.O.R alongside my house. Pretty sure it was the same guy.

Yeah,....that's too bad,..they're fast, but they sure can't compete with a car going 35-40 miles an hour.

I had some long-time residents in my yard as well where I used to live, and I've also seen several where I live now, even saw one a few months ago as I was walking up the wooden stairs to the beach. It wasn't 200 ft from the ocean itself!

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

Black Racers in trees aren't uncommon at all. My most memorable recollection is a "snake call" I received when working for the Jacksonville Humane Society many years ago. There were 4 racers about 15' up the tree & very obviously in a courtship mode. I calmed down the homeowner & we left the snakes to their privacy.

...the notion of further subspecies...you could even make a case for that one being a brown chinned racer I bet..

:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

The link below from CNAH(Center for North American Herpetology) is an example of a young Coluber c. helvigularis, and was from just two counties over from Panama City, Florida.

~Doug

Image

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

Yeah it really is out of their range..
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Hehehe! That was actually what she called him when she posted his picture for me. Brown-chin racer. ^_^

Her message to me:

"So I found this in a tree a couple of days ago...

And then today there were two more, one 3-3.5 feet long and one 4-4.5 feet long, that crawled out of a pile of brush next to my house.
Brownchin Racer?"
-----
Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan) (Deceased )
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)