Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I adopted this snake yesterday and would like help verifying what type of Water Snake he is. I was told he was a Northern Water from North Carolina. That's all I know. I don't know how reliable the North Carolina info is. So far I'm very happy with him. He does have some problems with one of his eyes. It's dimpled and looks funny. Not sure if my Vet would have any type of ointment for it or not? He eats fish and mice. I really hope he is a Northern because the main reason I wanted him was to go with my "native species" collection for demos. If not, he's still a great snake and I'm happy to have him, just won't fit in with the theme I've been trying to build up. Here are some photos....

Top View

Bottom View

Close up shot

He's about 3 feet long and quite heavy bodied

Side view

He's in a 40 breeder with UTH and a heat lamp. He has a water bowl and a cave. Currenly on newspaper but I'll pick him up some Aspen this week. There are more photos of him on my website (link in my sig line). Any help with ID would be greatly appreciated!
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Lyns Lair
WNY Herpetological Society

0.1 Cat (Mia)
4.2 Ferrets (Wolf, Shadow, Verdell, Sullivan, Boo, Peach)
8.0 Rats (Inky, Oy, Ben, Pinky, Templeton, Cotton, Bilbo, Carlo)
1.0 Carpet Python (Bear)
1.0 Malagasy Blonde Hognose (Wilbur)
1.0 Yellow/Everglades Rat Snake (Pumpkin)
1.0 Russian Sand Boa (Fang)
0.1 California King Snake (Boo)
0.1 Normal Corn Snake (Mysty)
1.0 Anery Corn Snake (Suezo)
1.1 Normal Corn Snakes het Pewter and Snow (Romeo & Juliet)
2.1.1 Eastern Milk Snakes (Uno, Dos, Tres, Snoopy)
1.0 Ball Python (Slytherin)
2.0 Smooth Green Snakes (Fred & George)
1.0 Northern Water Snake (coming soon)
0.1 Golden Greek Tortoise (Sunshine)
0.2 Mississippi Mud Turtles (Squirt & Shyanne)
1.0 Green Iguana (Norbert)
1.1 Bearded Dragons (Moose & Tipsy)
0.0.1 Mountain Horned Dragon (Tiramisu)
0.0.1 American Toad (Bump)
0.0.4 Mystery Toads (no names yet)
1.0 AFT Gecko (Cocoa)
5.4 Leopard Geckos (Trouble, Scooter, Simba, Firenze, Teddy, Mystique, Freckles, Zipper, Twister)

That is a Banded Watersnake (Nerodia fasciata fasciata). They are found in the coastal plain of North Carolina while Northern/Midland Watersnake intergrades (N. sipedon) are found in the Piedmont and mountains.

That is a large snake! Probably a female.
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Pierson Hill

Herpetology and Herpetoculture

I don't know Pierson, that snake looks a lot like my bandeds,
Oh, right ... that's what you just said! You know, if snake ID'g was gun fighting, you'd be Wyatt Earp!
That is a fine looking nerodia you've got there, nice to see that you're able to handle it comfortably. Thanks also for the many photo views, sure helps identification.
In the meantime, my snakes where just fed again as the weather up here turned and the temps in the "Florida Room" rose back up to the high seventies ('til this morning). Within the last few hours, the world outside has received a two inch blanket of snow and temps have dropped 10 degrees! I'm considering going out to collect Arctic Snow Snakes!
Michael.

The temps are pretty good here for me. It is like upper 60's during the day and 47 at night. That is my kind of winter. I wish it did not get colder than that here. It is realy hard to keep the temps right in my pyhton cages and they need perfect temps always.
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Justin

Upper sixties is our usual summer nighttime temps! Besides this and the Rockies, it's no wonder we have virtually no herps here.
Michael

Kind of a bummer that it's not a Northern, he was going to be the "star" of my native species demo group. I obviously will still want to have him with on the demos since he's a really neat snake.

My question, if you were doing a public demo (general public and/or kids, not necessarily reptile specialists) and you were showing the above pictured snake and saying it is a Banded Water Snake, similar to the local species in our area, the Northern Water Snake...

The next thing would be to explain the differences/similarities between the two species. What would be the biggest difference I could point out? Is it just the pattern? Or are there other physical characteristics that differ?

I have done countless searches on both species and to be honest, the variety of color/pattern in both species was so dramatic that I could not pin point what exactly the difference was, or what you guys were able to see in my snake that made it stand out as a Banded instead of a Northern? While it's probably just obvious to your trained eyes, my inexperienced eyes thought the two species looks pretty similar.

Thanks again for your help!

Here are 2 different Water Snakes I found while hiking last year. I'm assuming they are Northerns since that's all that's supposed to be in NY. Funny enough, if I had to describe the diffence between these snakes and my snake, I'd say that the Northern Water is "more banded" than the Banded Water? Or is it just that these two snakes are younger than mine and my snakes bands have faded with age?

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Lyns Lair
WNY Herpetological Society

0.1 Cat (Mia)
4.2 Ferrets (Wolf, Shadow, Verdell, Sullivan, Boo, Peach)
8.0 Rats (Inky, Oy, Ben, Pinky, Templeton, Cotton, Bilbo, Carlo)
1.0 Carpet Python (Bear)
1.0 Malagasy Blonde Hognose (Wilbur)
1.0 Yellow/Everglades Rat Snake (Pumpkin)
1.0 Russian Sand Boa (Fang)
0.1 California King Snake (Boo)
0.1 Normal Corn Snake (Mysty)
1.0 Anery Corn Snake (Suezo)
1.1 Normal Corn Snakes het Pewter and Snow (Romeo & Juliet)
2.1.1 Eastern Milk Snakes (Uno, Dos, Tres, Snoopy)
1.0 Ball Python (Slytherin)
2.0 Smooth Green Snakes (Fred & George)
1.0 Banded Water Snake (working on name)
0.1 Golden Greek Tortoise (Sunshine)
0.2 Mississippi Mud Turtles (Squirt & Shyanne)
1.0 Green Iguana (Norbert)
1.1 Bearded Dragons (Moose & Tipsy)
0.0.1 Mountain Horned Dragon (Tiramisu)
0.0.1 American Toad (Bump)
0.0.4 Mystery Toads (no names yet)
1.0 AFT Gecko (Cocoa)
5.4 Leopard Geckos (Trouble, Scooter, Simba, Firenze, Teddy, Mystique, Freckles, Zipper, Twister)

I like the 2nd pic best because it reminds me of going out and finding them . Every year it gets harder and harder to deal with the fact that I just cannot catch snakes in the winter. I am seriously addicted to it.
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Justin

I'm impressed. You can actually 'catch' them in the water? Like with your hands or a net or how? I didn't even try to catch these two Waters. Just took the photos. I do catch Garters, but the Waters are just so darn fast! It amazes me that they can survive a NY winter. It's been below freezing so many days. I wonder how they do it. And we've had a ton of freezing rain causing flooding all over. So what happens if their burrow fills with water but the ice over it traps them in??? Oh the poor things. Do they die? I worry so much over them even though they must be all right since they come out again year after year. Those two snakes were big enough they must have survived a few winters. Just baffles me how they do it.
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Lyns Lair
WNY Herpetological Society

0.1 Cat (Mia)
4.2 Ferrets (Wolf, Shadow, Verdell, Sullivan, Boo, Peach)
8.0 Rats (Inky, Oy, Ben, Pinky, Templeton, Cotton, Bilbo, Carlo)
1.0 Carpet Python (Bear)
1.0 Malagasy Blonde Hognose (Wilbur)
1.0 Yellow/Everglades Rat Snake (Pumpkin)
1.0 Russian Sand Boa (Fang)
0.1 California King Snake (Boo)
0.1 Normal Corn Snake (Mysty)
1.0 Anery Corn Snake (Suezo)
1.1 Normal Corn Snakes het Pewter and Snow (Romeo & Juliet)
2.1.1 Eastern Milk Snakes (Uno, Dos, Tres, Snoopy)
1.0 Ball Python (Slytherin)
2.0 Smooth Green Snakes (Fred & George)
1.0 Banded Water Snake (working on name)
0.1 Golden Greek Tortoise (Sunshine)
0.2 Mississippi Mud Turtles (Squirt & Shyanne)
1.0 Green Iguana (Norbert)
1.1 Bearded Dragons (Moose & Tipsy)
0.0.1 Mountain Horned Dragon (Tiramisu)
0.0.1 American Toad (Bump)
0.0.4 Mystery Toads (no names yet)
1.0 AFT Gecko (Cocoa)
5.4 Leopard Geckos (Trouble, Scooter, Simba, Firenze, Teddy, Mystique, Freckles, Zipper, Twister)

They go deep enough inot crevices and roacks and just about any other place. Just a few inches under ground and they will be away from the freezing temps.

Oh, and yea I can catch them usualy. Just jump right in and grab them. I ususaly get a bunch of stares at me though.lol.
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Justin

The general rule of thumb to distinguish these two species is that the Banded has a dark stripe reaching from behind the eyes to the rear corner of the mouth. The northern does not. This is extremely simplistic (though as often it applies) it can be complicated by inter-breeding of the species. Many other factors can also then be applied such as width and spacing of bands, belly pattern, etc, etc. to assist in differentiating the two. A great helping factor is geography, in sufficiently spaced wild populations.
And above all when all else fails (the method I use most frequently myself) ... I wait 'til someone (like Pierson) who's been trained for this stuff responds to the post. In fact, there's so much hands-on, field expertise on this forum that they can usually ID a snake within minutes!
Michael