Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello everyone, i'm going to be compiling an entire webpage full of short stories related to people getting bit by snakes. i'm looking for realistic (or humorous) stories (true or made-up) of people getting bit by different kinds of snakes. i know, i know....i have a LOT of free time on my hands, but hey....i gotsta spend it somehow =) i'm looking to get a large archive of stories before i set-up the site, so if you've been bitten, had a friend who's been bitten, or can just whip up an interesting story about getting tagged by a snake please write one up and send it to recordofwar@hotmail.com

also leave me a name so i can give credit where credit is due. thanks a lot, hope some of you send some stuff in!

Bad idea. Snakes have a bad enough reputation without someone making a site full of snake bite stories. Humorous or not.

Snake bite stories may scare non-herpers and a few beginners too. Fictionalized accounts may be exceptionally gory. However, I'm certain that nearly everyone here has a few stories about snakes that have a lot of personality, show intelligence or act in interesting ways.
For example, true story here, I volunteer at the local nature museum and take snakes for walks in the park so they can sunbask and wriggle around in the grass. We usually have two people, but last week my coworker "Andrew" was out there alone with a docile California kingsnake.
Things were peaceful despite a large children's birthday party nearby, when suddenly a dozen kids joyfully and potentially dangerously converged on him and the ground bound snake. Now Andrew only works with the snakes once a week, and then with different snakes. But despite the snake and Andrew's mutual unfamiliarity, the snake sure as heck knew it's guardian and when the kids came stampeding towards them, the little kingsnake immediately crawled up Andrew's leg for refuge.
All ended happily with the snake safe, the kids introduced to a fascinating animal, and Andrew breathing a big sigh of relief for his scaly charge.
There's also that time that I was sitting on the lawn and the gopher snake I took out stared at me for five minutes straight trying to figure me out before crawling into my lap to look for a pocket to hide in.
I'm sure there are tons of stories like this, or even better. Snake bites can be absolutely hillarious, but a site dedicated to anecdotes about it could cause people to want to one up eachother with scarier and gorier horror stories. And what herpers shudder at, the general public will really freak out at possibly leading to restrictive legislation, jerks buying large snakes because they're "bad ass" or indiscriminate killing of snakes in the wild. More than usual, that is.
Don't get me wrong, building a site full of herper anecdotes is a brilliant idea (though you'll have to list fiction and non-fiction seperately). And with free speech, free will and all, you can make it however you darn please, but I must respectfully ask you for the sake of our hobby, to have it show the light side of the force, avoiding anecdotes about huge escapees, graphic descriptions of feeding fuzzy bunnies, or snakes chomping their keepers.
Thanks for listening to my rant. If you like, you're welcome to use my little paragraph about the gopher snake, though I'd have to ask my coworker's permission for you to use the thing about the kingsnake and him.
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oh no worries, i know exactly what you mean. if everyone thinks it's a bad idea, there really isn't any good reason to do it. i understand exactly where you're coming from. i'd hate to hurt the hobby in any way. the reason behind me wanting to make the site (besides from having a lot of free time) was not to scare people away from snakes at all. me and my buddies always have a good laugh about getting bit by a snake here and a snake there. i wanted a site (split up into ficitional, non-fictional) which told accounts of being bitten by wild snakes (perhaps i should've put that in my first post). however i've taken your opinion to heart, and have chosen not to create that particular page. in any event, if anyone has some send 'em to me anyway. i always get a kick out of it.

Whew! I'm grateful you're looking after our hobby. Well, I'll be a bit of a hypocrite and offer you a snakebite story to read, the most benign one I've witnessed and also the funniest. I hope you enjoy.

I was in a highly reputable if slightly overpriced reptile specialty store and inquired to an employee (who I embarassingly forget the name of) about the first amethystine python I had ever seen in real life. He took the tame half grown snake out for me to admire and explained that she could reach fifteen feet. Far too much snake for me, even if she was pretty enough to make an artist weep for joy.
So he pointed out a few other smaller pythons and brought out a jungle carpet python hatchling. Now, while adult JCP's can make marvelous pets, the babies are well known to be a bit defensively nippy.
No sooner than he took out the adorable little baby than the pencil length youngster lunged at him and latched onto his third knuckle.
After benignly watching the baby cling to him for a minute, he gently asked it, "Are you going to let go?"
Beady eyes flashing, the snakelet's only reply was to try to advance it's jaws to swallow it's keeper knuckle first, rather like me trying to swallow a three story house.
I commented to the determined hatchling, "You know, he's too big for you to eat..."
The snake's keeper laughed at this and the hatchling soon lost interest in it's oversized meal.

So, there's that story. Not hillarious but still amusing. Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, but finals are being scary.
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0.2 chickens
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave)
0.1 Halflinger horse
0.0 reptiles due to living with
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human