Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Chris ,what is with all the Scarlets this year ,My son and I were going out the front door to get the boat to go fishing ,and lying on the door mat was a Scarlet Snake , about 18 inches long .It was 5 am and I didn't get a picture ,he was very calm ,and a cool find .I showed him the difference between the Scarlet snake and the Scarlet king snake,with the help of a book

Terry M

Terry, you know what... it's actually kinda funny. This spring was relatively dry and scarlets were slim pickings. I've heard of 'a couple' good finds but that's about it. Now it's well into our FL summer and all of a sudden the last couple of months have yeilded all sorts of tropical moisture. Now the scarlets are popping up I suppose. I'll admit that I never expected to stumble onto some this late in the year as well...
I suppose they're likely more prevelant than we suspect... and as Rusty pointed out after re-releasing his cool find that once back in the tree it was barely visible. Hell I was trying to take a picture of one a couple weeks ago and it shot out of the container, hit the ground and promptly disappeared into my lawn's root structure. I was just clumping at grass hoping for a flash of color. It ended well enough but I never did get a picture...
By the way great find at your doorstep! Honestly I've never caught a scarlet snake in the wild so it would be a 'lifer' for me... hand delivered! Too cool man...

Chris

I caught a couple in the mtns of NC last year. I collected them because I didn't have a camera when I found them and they had never been recorded from that county. I took them home for photographs and held them for 4 days before bringing them back. I noticed that they dessicate much faster than any other snake that I've kept before...less than 24 hours in aspen substrate and I could see that they needed something more moist. I ended up putting them in cypress mulch with a damp paper towel on top and they looked great when released at the spot where found a couple days later.

This is a really long way of saying that the extra rain may be the reason you guys are seeing more...

Thanks,
Michael

I'm conducting a reptile inventory for the University of the South in Sewanee, TN and have yet to come across any of these guys. The university has records from the 1960s that lists the northern scarlet snake as "rare" on the university's property (though they apparently had SOME sightings or it wouldn't have made the list). My project partner and I are spending 7-9 hours in the field every day though in habitats ranging from upland canebrakes to mixed mesophytic plateau forests to cove forest ecosystems (where it tends to be particularly damp) and we have not seen a single scarlet snake. I'm happy for your recent finds will have to keep my fingers crossed for similar success!

I've read that they commonly turn up in fall traps set up with drift fences in eastern NC. Seems they also turn up on roads at night more than under cover.

Good luck!
Michael

The only time I ever found a scarlet snake was in a snake "trap" (with a drift fence) deep within a pine forest. I never found one again.