Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Near Talledega, central/east Alabama

LOL!!!,....seriously?. I can only barely make out a snake of "some sort" after even blowing up the photo..

I am guessing it's probably a harmless Water Snake (Nerodia ssp.) that is gravid (pregnant) and thermoregulating to further develop the live young inside her at this time of the season. That, or it just ate a Bass..LOL! The ONLY other snake with that type of build there would be a Moccasin. But it looks to be a harmless Water Snake to me being a bit lighter.

Doesn't your camera have a "zoom" feature?..

That's gotta be one of the furthest away ID photos I've seen in a LOOOONG time..LOL!

I'm just messin' with ya some..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

"some are just born to troll and roll"

Yeah, sorry about the photo, it's from a friend who took it on her farm. I guessed water moccasin because it is such a fat snake, but will tell her it could be a harmless water snake as well. I think that picture must be from her phone camera.

Yeah, I can understand that. Both the cottonmouth and the harmless water snakes have a very similar stocky body proportion.

When I blew up the photo prior to it becoming too extremely pixelated, it looked to be a harmless Water Snake, but as Larry also mentioned, it's just not close enough to see any real identifying meristic features, so you don't want to assume. If the person would have VERY slowly and carefully walked a good bit closer and took the photo, it definitely would have been close enough for an accurate identification. You could tell her if she sees another snake there next time that it won't chase her down whatsoever if she can slowly get closer as to not spook the snake. I'm sure she was the one that was "spooked" anyway because of the distance..LOL! When moving very, very slowly, snakes can't even tell anything's there. If the snake was spooked, it would have simply crawled off into the water and got further away to a safer distance and resumed thermoregulating.

Anyway, yes, we tried, but nothing more could be said about it other than what we both mentioned. We'll just wish her better luck on the next photo if she get's a chance..

cheers, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

"some are just born to troll and roll"

I can't tell either. It LOOKS like it has a pattern that suggests maybe a banded water snake, but at this scale that could just be an "interference pattern" between the scale pattern and the pixels of the image sensor, so I can't rule out cottonmouth. Without a closer picture, I would have to tell her to be careful...
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

I don't think you could ID that with any certainty.

The head (if that is the head) might hint at Cottonmouth, but it could be any number of other things.
The pattern is oddly banded. Too banded for a cottonmouth clearly. Maybe a Midland Watersnake? It isn't a broad-banded watersnake.

No call.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas