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i was walking in the yard and this snake struck at me and hit my shoe... thank goodness... He's very aggressive. I know we have moccassins and rattlers here (alabama). Can someone tell me what this is. It's obvious very young.
snakes

It will lose the pattern as an adult. They are non venomous and completely harmless.
Chris

but he's so aggressive. Do racers strike? I guess it's probably a myth. I've always heard if a snake is aggressive/strikes frequently it's poisonous. Of course my parents and grandparents have told me this all my life. I guess they could have just said that so i wouldn't play with snakes...lol

thank you for your help

Black racers can be very aggressive in spite of being harmless - I don't think I've ever caught one without it trying to bite me. A lot of nonvenomous snakes are quite aggressive. Harmless water snakes (Nerodia species), which look a lot like venomous water moccassins, are often very nippy, whereas the moccassins are often slow to bite. Don't start picking up moccassins (or anything that looks like one), but my point is that aggression does not indicate how dangerous the snake actually is.
Philly Herping

i've done some reading. I do see where they can mean as hell...lol it just eases my mind to know it isn't poisonous. I also found a picture of a baby racer on the web and it looks just like the juvinile before 2-3 months.

so it's just a baby.......i will let it go ... let it go on it's merry way now... Thank you for all the help

its a northern black racer... Im from Alabama, what part are you from? dekalb county? im assuming your from south Alabama, because of the term we have moccasins and rattlers...

hahaha..... u see i don't know much about snakes,,, I'm from baldwin county (foley)... trying to learn a little tho..we've had alot of snakes this year. we've found 6 in our yard. one was a some type of rattler.... had alot of rattles.. mostly been having black snakes... I don't know if they are racers or rat or what... 1 was agressive.. the other 3 I picked up by their tail and put them back in the woods.. they weren't aggressive at all. and of course a green snake.

Snakes are defensive..not aggressive. If you were walking fifty feet from the snake & it crawled over to you & bit you, that would be aggression. Since you walked so close to it that it could bite you without moving closer to you to do so, you were close enough to pose a serious threat to it. Semantics, I know, but I like to see y'all get it right. You may find the attached website of passing interest. Your area & mine share a lot of the same snakes.

~~Greg~~
Venomous Snakes of Florida

The rattler you saw was a timber rattlesnake " canebrake" and the very aggressive black snake was the racer, the other to black rat snakes, and the green was a rough green snake..

ty

Snake Master
Did I miss some pics or did she send you some via e-mail. Last time I checked, Baldwin Co. Alibama has 3 species of "Rattlers".
Canebreak (Timber)Rattlesnake
Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
Dusky Pigmy Rattlesnak

Also, the subspecies of ratsnake in that part of Alabama would be the Gray Ratsnake

The gray rat and black rat itegrade in NE Alabama, but there are no snakes concidered pure black rats in the state.
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Brian Emanuel
NYOKA REPTILES
nyokareptiles@yahoo.com

Where I live in dekalb county, there is Pure black rats, not intergrade. and the only venomous in dekalb is southern copperhead,eastern cottonmouth, and canebrake and the only common out of the three is the copperhead...

Dekalb County is clearly in the ingrade zone for Grays/Blacks, so no pure blacks there.

Also, the Cottonmouths in Dekalb are ingrades, and the Copperheads are either Northerns, or ingrades, not Southerns.

Wrong again... southerns in dekalb...

Cool, you should have that published, that's about a 100 mile range extention.

nice sarcasm... Im just telling what i have studied my self.. In Dekalb, Madison,and Jackson counties are all pure black rats.. there is some places in Dekalb there are intergrades supposly.. like Ider alabama.. and in Marion county, and down south there are alot of gray rat snakes...

Yes buddy that is where you are wrong... I have lived here in this area my whole life and I have herped and study snakes here all my life and I know for a fact.. where i live there is 100 percent black rats.. solid black..everyone of them.. and that is about say 200.... I think i should know.. instead of what some book has to say....

Snakes in an ingrade zone can look like pure forms of either snake, but by virtue of being in the ingrade zone, they ARE ingrades, not pure forms. If you believe otherwise, you can do the DNA work to have the range of the Black Rat extended, but until then....

Do u live up here??? no if there intergrades.. they would be blotches visible and not as black.. the blacks here are pure.. all the herpetolgists in the area say so..also... im sure of this though.. and yes there are southern copperheads though to.. anything else u wanna know about lol.. or what ur little book has to go by?

You cannot tell if a snake is an ingrade by coloration. Sorry, try again. Unless you have the DNA work up to show they are pure, then they are ingrades, whether I live there or not.

They have at Desota National Park,, that is what im saying the herpetologists here say they are pure.. and i could even tell that...

Would you happen to have a citation?

Why should i have to prove anything to you?? and where are from... anywhere in NE Alabama? and anything else u wanna say im wrong about?? like southern copperheads being up here.. up eastern milk x red milks up here,, black kings x speckles?

Depends, if you want to extend the range of any more snakes to bring them into Dekalb County. Maybe you guys have Eastern Diamondbacks and Northern Watersnakes too. LOL

Nope we dont have edb rattlers , but northern waters snakes yes, we do... there ingrades with the midland water snake.....

"but northern waters snakes yes, we do... there ingrades with the midland water snake"

Nope, not even ingrades in AL yet another amazing range extension of about a hundred miles, just to get to the ingrade zone and even further to get to pure Northerns. LOL

pure northern in dekalb i dont think so !!!!!!!!!!! there either midlands or northerns or intergradess... ok im gonna stop this lil fight caught obviously u dont know S##$t about snakes....and only rely on feild guides...

You are right, there aren't ant Northerns in Dekalb and I never said there were. Only Midlands the ingrade zone with northers doesn't come into AL at all. LOL

I said there were ingrades with northerns.. and yes northerns do come into alabama.. and Tennessee... and the most common are midlands which are manly ingrades also... why dont u ask justin stricklin from marion county Alabama.. what do u know about dekalb county huh??? tell me.. and where are u from.. Stop relying on field guys.. and get off ur lazy a** and get in the feild and hunt and study snakes why dont you???? this convo is over i dont have to prove anything to anyone..; all you want is to be right.. cause some feild guide says im wrong...

You're right, we shouldn't rely on the published scientific data and just make stuff up like you. LOL

LOL ur a funny guy LOL... you know nothing about snakes,, just face it... keep replying.. ur not making me change my mine. ihave 3 guys sitting here making fun of you.. and how smart you think you are.. you know nothing about alabama herps.. now u should read the book snakes of alabama though....

LOL Really, you should publish all this information. It is quite a scientific discovery. You have a significant range extension for not just one, but three different snake species. LMAO

after all, he is the SNAKE MASTER.

Posted by Snake Master 12 Jul 2005

"the only water snakes in my range is midland and redbelly water snake..."

LMAO

When did I say that??? We have midlands, northerns,redbellys,yellowbellys, and queen snake not nerodia, but practically water snake...and most of the feild guides say we have northern water snakes, black rats and southern copperheads.... And i dropped this convo awhile back so why do u keep replying, ur like a little kid ? how old are you.. man ur imature....

If you dropped this conversation, you wouldn't still be replying. You only said you dropped it, but didn't Here is your post where the quote came from.
Can't keep your story straight. LOL

LMFAO ! that was along time ago not today.... and All im saying is i have found black rats,northern waters, and southern copperheads that may of been northerns just lighter....

"and All im saying is i have found black rats,northern waters, and southern copperheads that may of been northerns just lighter."

All I'm saying is that a light colored Northern Copperhead is still a Northern Not a Southern. And just because it is Black doesn't make it P.o.obsoleta. all the snakes in an ingrade zone are considered ingrades, no matter what they look like. The ingrade zone between Northerns and Midlands starts right about where TN starts starts making a NE jag and doesn't come further SW of that. SW of that is Midland territory, which includes all of AL.

WEll all I have to say with the black rats... are that the Herpetologists from desota national park studied and said that the black rats from sylvania,ider, and all of sand and lookout mountain.. are pure... but other places in delkalb there are black rats...Well ok. maybe there not northerns but they look like the text book northerns and every once in awhile.. you will see a real orange or red water snake that you can point out and say midland...dekalb is on the tennesse line almost...and limestone counties....the copperheads could possiblay be northerns.. but you cant say the timbers here are not canebrakes.. all the of them i have found had that nice cream coloration... witht the brown stripe giong down its back... ect.. i guess you know...where i seen the northern waters are in the tennesse river..and there suppose to be ingrades with the midland...do u have the book snakes for alabama..?it shows counties and all that where they have been found....im was just saying what i have found.. I have also found a nice population of northern pine and eastern hog..

i mean the rest of dekalb and other states besides madison.. are gray ingrades....

Wait.. you said midlands all of alabama???? there not way down south....manly down there starts the brown water snakes, diamondbacks,redbellys, bandeds, ect...Well im considering the rats here black rats...looks as if they were ingrades.. u would see at least one gray and black.. but i dont know about that...

I am not entering this pi$$ing contest, guys. Looking at Conant's range maps, Alabama seems to be an extremely diverse state regarding the nerodia population. He shows the midland covering the whole state except the s.e. corner & the whole north end of the state. In the north end, he shows the northern. This would lead me to believe one would expect to find intergrades up there. He shows the banded covering the width of the state at the south end. He shows the red-bellied in the southeast corner, & the yellow-bellied in the rest of the state except for basically the northeast portion. The diamondback is shown along the western length of the state & protruding into the middle of the state, and the brown is in the southeast corner. Using his maps, one might even find the Florida green along the southern border with Florida. Then there's N. rigida, the glossy, in the southern half of the state.

Again, referencing Conant, the northern copperhead is found in the northern half of Alabama & the southern in the south half. This is such a confusing genus, that even with detailed locality data, one could easily get the two confused. Colors can be identical in the two, & the pattern variations that are key are often very slight. I would imagine that this would be even harder to figure in an area where the two are found virtually together..and possibly intergrading.

~~Greg~~

Greg, which edition of the Peterson field guide are you referencing? Mine, third edition Connent/Collins, shows the same thing as Tennants book on eastern US snakes and Mara's book on water snakes. See Map.

Red: Northerns
Blue: Midlands
Green: Ingrades

Ok if Im wrong then LOL.. you are as well.. cause you plainly said midlands cover the whole state lol...

Mine is the older one..just authored by Conant. ~~Greg~~

I was raised in Huntsville, AL (Madison Co.) and now live in FLorida. I have a fairly decent grasp on the diverse herpetifauna of the state. Unfortuatlely there are many questions yet to be answered on taxonomy of the herps there. I, Like Greg am not going to waste a bunch of time in this, but have to make a few points, then I am done.

1. Most of your observations are incorrect. The integrade kings are further south, Auburn is a good place to find some cool integrade L.getula. Seriously doubt there are northen watersnakes in Al. The ratsnakes in NE AL are integrades according to several field guides, and I have caught 100's in Madison Co. that range from classic greys to almost black, they are at best integrades. The Canebreaks are obvious, and while I believe they are a seperate subspecies than the Timbers, current accepted taxonomy does not recognize a difference.
The triangulum are very interesting as they are supposed to integrade, but I found an animal at Lookout Mountain many years ago when on a herpetology field trip from Auburn U. It appeared to be pure eastern, but I would not be "100% on that" as it escaped out of the bag that night before we could examine it in the daylight for scale counts, blotch counts, etc. I have also caught red milks and scarlet kingsnakes on the same mountain ranges in Madison Co. Triangulums seem to be one of those odd snakes that integrade in one area and live sympatrically in others. Like I said, lots of work to be done by folks that are taking accurate data and examining it properly.

2. You seem to think that your field experience and opinion outrank those of noted herpetologists as Robert Mount, Roger Conant, and Joseph Collins, Blanchard, and way too many to list here. That is either confidence backed by some serious credentials, ignorance, or sheer arrogance.

3. Desota if I remember correctly, is a state park, and not a National Park. I seriously doubt that they have any staff herpetologist. The stat park system in Al. is way behind the times when it comes to managing their lands, and they don't have the funds to have specialists such as herpetologists. I wold like to see the names of all these herpetologists in Dekalb Co.

4. I piped in originally because you were giving incorrect info. to a nice youg woman seeking info on snakes in Baldwin Co. That issue has been lost, and this thread really belongs in the taxonomy forum.

Have fun, and good evening.

Brian Emanuel
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Brian Emanuel
NYOKA REPTILES
nyokareptiles@yahoo.com

I live on Lookout mountain.. and yes they are 100 percent eastern there.. but in most of dekalb they ingrade with the red milk and scarlet king snake... ok madison county is where i have found black kings...that were not ingrade but in jackson they ingrade with the speckle and so on as in marion county.. and northern water snakes are found in the tennessee river in scottsoboro ..and yes there are herpetologists in Desota..

And all you are going by are field guides... and ive lived here my whole life...and you have probally never even been to dekalb county at all.... or know anything about it..and there has been an edb found d.o.r in jackson county below dekalb. but no we are not suppose to have themm.. where are u from.. florida? lol...

ty. you've been so helpful. I'm so glad i now know that this snake was not poisonous. I took out to the woods and let it go, even though my 6 year old begged me to keep it...lol so it's safe and back in it's habitat now.