Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I live in Northern Virginia, and spotted a interesting snake in the creek near my house yesterday. I wish I could describe it better than this, but I'll try my best. First of all, I saw it and looked at it for about a half minute before it saw me. As soon as it did, it went under the water. It was dark brown, and real thick. It had one small lighter colored circle near its neck, but that was the only pattern I saw on it. It was about 2-3 feet in length. Anyone have any ideas what this thick snake was?

Interesting screen name. From the behavior, it would not be the venomous cottonmouth. They seldom dive to avoid humans. This is typical, however of the genus Nerodia, the watersnakes. Older animals get darker & the pattern fades. Get a field guide or search the web to find out, perhaps, which of the few that occur in your area it may have been.

~~Greg~~

my guess is Storeria occipitomaculata the northern red bellied snake, it is usually found in water.

Sounds too big to be a Storeria genus. Nerodia is very likely.

Probally a norther water snake or red belly some notherns have red bellies. but im for sure its not a nothern red bellied snkae they dont get that long and shouldnt dive in a creek
i hope this helps

Zach

I disagree all the nothern red bellied snakes that I have found in Virginia have been in the water they fond of crayfish.

ok i dont know where u got that, a 10 inch snake is gonna eat a crayfish? no they dont he said the snake was 3 ft red bellies only get to a little over 10 inches and northern water snake was probally the snake

he said two to three feet the northern red bellied snake gets 16 inches,about the average size of eastern garter, which when you consider that most people tend the estimate on the high side when it comes to size, that is about right. As for the crayfish, the last northern red bellied snake that I caught was swimming through lake Barcroft in Virginia with a crayfish in his mouth, so I'd say that convinced me. You can find these snakes living basically along and in creeks pretty much as you would find water snakes.

in northern virginia they look like this

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