Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok so i dont have much info to go on but its worth thr try

i live in southern illinois
we live in the country in hills and fields....we have this large pnd on part of our property....

my brother and i were taking a walk the other day and found this snake...i coould only see a little of him cause he was in the water...and when i realized that it was in fact a snake i screamed and ran {ha an incident when i was younger with snake...ever since then i dont get well with them}
now i have found snakes before and its kind of obvious to now that there would be some here where we live now...but i was expectin the size i have found before and this one was not anywhere close to it...

like i said i got to see part of it cause it was in the water and when i realized i ran....but it was rather large...about the size of a large cats head without the ears....it was in the wter and it was a blueish grey...that i saw it had no designs on it or anything...

i looked trough a few pages of water snakes and just snakes common in this area and not of the them looked or sounded right

i really want to know what kind it was and how dangerous and or venmous it is so if anyone can help that would be awesome!!!!

>>like i said i got to see part of it cause it was in the water and when i realized i ran....but it was rather large...about the size of a large cats head without the ears....it was in the wter and it was a blueish grey...that i saw it had no designs on it or anything...

Unfortunately, this description isn't enough to allow us to identify the animal. The bluish gray color could be due to the fact that the snake was getting ready to shed, or it could have been iridescence or the wet scales reflecting some sky color, or the snake could have actually been that color.

As for the size of a large cat's head....do you mean the diameter of the snake or the size of the coiled body, or the size of the head itself? Interestingly, the size of a snake seems to be directly proportional to the person's fear of snakes. If you were REALLY afraid, the the snake would look REALLY big.

Check a field guide or website covering your local reptiles. If you can't ID it, don't worry. It is more than likely non-venomous and as you observed in this case, you weren't in any danger because the snake didn't come after you or behave in any aggressive way. They never do.

So learn to identify the local venomous species (they aren't more than one or two) and enjoy your time outside. Think about how much time you've spent outside in your life and how many snakes you've seen. Now compare that to the number of lightning strikes you've seen. Lightning is a lot more dangerous than any snake and you are much more likely to get struck by lightning that bitten by a snake, yet we all calmly go outside, even when there are storms in the area. We understand the danger and behave accordingly.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Also, by "large cat", do you mean "large housecat"?

The only venomous snake it could be in your area would be a cottonmouth and only quite close the the southern border. More likely a water snake (many of them are mostly black when they get older). Maybe a black ratsnake. As Chris said, possibly in shed.

And just to be picky Chris, many more people are bitten by snakes than hit by lighting. It's just that the mortality rate for lightning is something like 33% compared to 0.1% for snake bite. So, roughly ten times more people DIE from lighting than from snake bite.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

>>And just to be picky Chris, many more people are bitten by snakes than hit by lighting. It's just that the mortality rate for lightning is something like 33% compared to 0.1% for snake bite. So, roughly ten times more people DIE from lighting than from snake bite.

Good point. I was thinking about snake fatalities.

FEMA estimates 200 deaths per year from lighting out of around 1000 strikes.

There are however, around 7000 snake bites and only around 14 fatalities. So you are 7 times more likely to be bitten by a snake, but less that 1/10th as likely to die.
You are 1250 times more likely to die in a traffic accident while driving to or from your snake adventure.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Found an interesting study that tracks all US animal fatalities for a number of years. It showed that annual average deaths from snakebite were 5 . . . from spiders 6 . .. from dogs 19 and from bee and wasp stings, 48. So honeybees continue to be the most dangerous North American animal. Here is a link to the study:
http://www.wemjournal.org/wmsonline/?request=get-document&issn=1080-6032&volume=016&issue=02&page=0067

If you guys keep this up, Bekah is going to be afraid to leave her house.
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Kent

ok lets see if i can get this all...lol

when i said as big as a large cats head i meant in diameter not coiled or the head
As fo the size of it being how afriad i was that could be but when my brohter and i started describing we had about the same size and all and hes not afirad at all so....
as for knowing the venmous against the non i now know that cause afater i foud it i did all thje research...and i did look at local snakes around here and non of them match so my thinking was either you were right about the sheding or its not common around here or just soemthin else....

and when i say large cats head i do mean a large housecat
cotton mouth does seem to fit best with me but im still not sure and the being in shed thing would also make sense to me....

and lol kent could be right if you guys keep going i may be afriad to leave my house again.....{lol...just kidding...im good}

but thanks for all of that knowledge above guys!! lol!!!!

Bekah

Man!,....if I ever come across a cottonmouth that "truly" has a head as big around in diameter as a large house cat's, I will surely become rich from my exploiting it financially!..LOL!. A venomous Cottonmouth Water Python comes to mind.

Please forgive my humor with this thing, and please don't take offense to my having a bit of fun, but I really did have to chuckle at that part.LOL!

What Chris H. said about the fear part in most people tending to over-dramatizing size when it comes to snakes and the general public, the statement could NOT be truer. This is absolute fact.

There are many uncountable "tales" over many decades that I have heard from people over the years, and the stories never cease to amaze me. Like the Diamondback Rattlesnake that stretched across the width of an "entire" highway!. This is another absolute impossibility. The snake would have to be somewhere in the 15-20 foot range, and they only grow to a MAXIMUM of eight feet long. An eight foot one would be an absolute MONSTER of a Diamondback.

best regards, ~Doug

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

Sorry, after reading the last post again, I see you did mean the body diameter, and not the head, so I apologize for my long silly rant..LOL!. But all the stuff I stated about sizes of snakes being greatly exaggerated are still absolutely true. I can't help but think of the 49 ft. Reticulated Python a few years back that was reported to be in captivity in an Indonesian zoo, and turned out to ACTUALLY be only 23 ft. long. Yes, a big snake, but still slightly shy of the reported gargantuan length of 49 ft. long. See what I mean?..LOL!

take care, ~Doug

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

WOW...that is a huge snake.....not sure what i would do if i came across a snake that size.....lol....

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

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