Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dunno if you can see this pic or not, it's a cool one. Also don't have a location:

Looks like a northern water snake to me.

C. batrachus?
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

It's either a Midland Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon pleuralis), or a Northern Water Snake (Nerodia s. sipedon). I've seen specimens of either subspecies that I couldn't tell the difference if my life depended on it. Then if you consider any intergradation in their overlapping ranges, it's anyone's guess without precise locale-data.

Just for one example, this photo is said to be of a Midland Water Snake, but there are other Northern Water Snakes that look virtually identical and there are even dedicated Northern Water Snake web site's that have this very same photo portraying a Northern Watersnake instead...

It's definitely ONE of the two........

~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I'm with Doug on this one. My first thought was midland due to the lower blotches being centered on the spaces between the upper ones, but one of the keys is the size of the spacing between the upper blotches. Throw in inter-breeeding, & it gets near impossible. You have the same problem with the lower post...pictiventris & fasciata crossbreed. ~~Greg~~

How can you tell they're crosses? Do they all appear to be crosses or just a couple? I've been looking for examples online without much luck. Going to try and check some field guides later today, maybe I'll be able to answer my own question! Thanks Greg

Well, Greg wasn't claiming they were intergrades or pure specimens, he was simply pointing out that without precise locality data, it can often be impossible to know if certain specimens are "pure" lineage subspecies, or are from an intergrade zone where their ranges overlap. See, all SORTS of crosses of any given clutch or litter (in this case) can sometimes display phenotypic characteristics (outward visual looks) of either parent subspecies as well as intermediates between the two. Even two snakes found side by side can be very different looking because it ALL depends on the percentages of each parents genetic contribution as to what they can look like. Then there is individual variation to consider too .....even within the same bunch of offspring. It is like this with countless captive-bred snakes in the hobby today where people cross all sorts of snakes all "willy-nilly" and call the bogus offspring something very specific when they are NOT at all. You would simply not believe how often I see unidentifiable crossed garbage being bred and for sale. Too many people are involved with doing it now days, and almost anyone can breed snakes with little to no experience. Many people in this hobby know just enough to be very detrimental to it. I see this all day long, every single day of the year.

The bottom line is that many times without knowing precisely where a given snake originated (in the wild, or from captive-breedings) in conjunction with how "textbook" they key-out meristic-wise, many snakes can be impossible to distinguish down to the subspecific level with any real certainty. There can be many variables if it is not known precisely where certain snakes came from, and whether or not the animal is well within it's known "pure" range well away from any other neighboring subspecies. How well it keys-out for it's species/subspecies as described by taxonomy along with exactly were they are found are the two deciding factors with accurately identifying certain snakes. Some types can be WAY easier than others.

Here is some helpful stuff on the Natural history of North American Water Snakes.

cheers, ~Doug
Natural history of the Nerodia complex

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Thanks for such a well thought out reply Doug! It really is never as simple as I had hoped, haha! I'm trying to get locality info on them, but who knows. They came from someone in far south Florida, but I'm trying to find out where they might have gotten them. I appreciate all the information. That's a good link too.. gonna add that to my future book purchases.

Thank you again

You are very welcome. You are so right about the complexity of really knowing exactly what's what in the animal kingdom sometimes, especially with snakes. Some types can be very easy to distinguish to the subspecific level, and sometimes it is just as accurate to flip a coin in the air, unless they are known to originate from well interior of their ranges..

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Gotta admit I was betwix & between northern & midland water too. I've got to agree with Doug & Greg's well thought out & detailed responses. Guess I should have just said "Nerodia sipedon", and left it at that.

P

If push comes to shove, pictiventris translates to painted belly, which leads me to say the colorful undersides belong to the Floridas. ~~Greg~~

Thanks for the input Greg! I'm trying to get locality information. Hopefully, that will help me determine for sure.

I am in Palm Beach County, Mike, & have seen both. They can really be hard to tell apart. The dorsal patterns, clarity & markings vary a lot more than the venters, but the venters don't always help that much. As a kid, I caught a lot of snakes down in Dade County, & as I recall, the undersides of the two were much more like textbook. Luck! ~~Greg~~

BTW found out it was on the Chattahoochee near Atlanta. I saw several big watersnakes on the Hiwassee recently - that is the 'snakiest' river I regularly run. Here is one big fellow - he slithered away before I could get a real good shot of him:

Nice find!

Yes, that's definitely a Northern there. It is well inside the known range because of it being found on the river in the Atlanta area.

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Got some folks insisting it's a hognose snake... thoughts?

"Got some folks insisting it's a hognose snake... thoughts?"

Yes, I have just one thought.......HAHAHAHAA!!! HAHAHAH!!!!..

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Aquatic hognose..sure. Much like the infamous arboreal mole.

~~Greg~~

"Aquatic hognose..sure. Much like the infamous arboreal mole"

Yes, those Flying Paradise Tree L.c.occipitolineata are very unique, aren't they..

Flying Tree S. Florida Mole king

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Well, believe it or not, things got kind of heated in the debate about whether or not this was a hognose snake. (paddlers forum). Experts were emailed and money challenge bets were offered.
I used to have a Western Hognose as a pet and he ate pinky/small mice. Read some advice to never give him a toad or he might expect his preferred food and refuse the mice. I don't think it's impossible that he would have eaten a fish, but it's not an experiment I would have ever tried. From what I've gathered, if this was a hognose, it would have been the first evidence in the wild of a hoggie eating fish. Anyway it was an entertaining debate.
BTW they say hognose never bite people, but Piglet would try to bite me, to the point that I wore dish gloves when picking him up, and would get little pricks in the glove material from his little rear 'fangs'. I gave him to a herper, need to find out how he's doing and if he's still so ornery.

He's ornery 'cause you changed his diet! Just kidding. I think I recall hearing that the westerns are a lot more likely to take mice than the easterns. No idea why. I was never one to try to change a snake's diet. If I had a local snake that I could not supply with food, I'd cut it loose. I actually did pretty well with corals for several years. Try keeping them supplied with food! Cemophora are a bear. ~~Greg~~

Yes, that place sounds like it has a great panel of "experts". Ray Charles could ID snakes better than those people. It is just amazing what people "think" they are looking at sometimes.

Yes, I have known of countless people being bitten by Western and Easterns. The reactions can vary greatly from mild to wild too depending on the person. Also, it is very true that Western Hogs have more of a pre-dispostion for accepting rodents than Easterns do, but they can often be swithed over with some scenting and then be just as easy. Of course this depends on the individual snake and other factors like the husbandry it is maintained in, etc...

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

>>Got some folks insisting it's a hognose snake... thoughts?

Well, this is one of those situations where I can certainly see where the pattern looks a lot like a hog, and having the head stretched out by that fish adds to the similarity, but if they just took a few minutes to look up a few pictures of each, there's no question which it is.

That being said, I've seen enough pictures of water snakes labeled as cottonmouths and hog's and water snakes labeled as copperheads that I wouldn't be surprised if they've seen pictures of a northern water snake on an "official" looking web site labeled as a hog.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.