I was cleaning my pool yesterday morning and there was a baby Eastern Diamondback rattler in there just floating around. I went to dip him out with the net and he actually tried to coil up on top of the water and strike the net! He was quite aggressive. Finally scooped him up and dumped him out in the woods away from the house.
Then last night I was doing some beadwork and watching an animal planet show called 'I Was Prey' and one of the episodes was a guy who partially beheaded a Western Diamondback and got bitten 3 times when he tried to pick it up and almost died. Sheesh.

Not long ago, either in a newspaper article or a t.v. show I was watching, it mentioned how some snakes (like the Diamond Back Rattler and Pygmy Rattler) can still strike and inject venom after the head has been chopped off!

That is true. I saw it on a Dual Survival show. Joe Teti killed a Diamond Back and cut off the head and then he buried the head mouth down in a hole in the ground. They said the snake could continue to inject venom hours after the head had been chopped off. Astounding! Be careful out there.

Yeah I don;t think their nervous systems are advanced enough to know when they are dead. Its weird

We had a friend who wanted the skins & we killed one & he cut off the head & had it half skinned, pulling the skin down, peeling it off when the nub reared back & began striking at him. He turned a whiter shade of pale that's for sure. All the snakes he had skinned over all the years & this one totally freaked him out. We never saw him so pale & shaken up.

I rescued a new to me snake this morning. It had gotten on the screened back porch. Tiny thing, no more than 3" & maybe not even that long. It's head was caught up in a dust ball. I took the broom & shepherded it into a dustpan. I took it outside to let it go but before I let it go, I wanted to see what kind it was. To my surprise, the head was a completely different color than the body. The dust ball had been obscuring a good look at the head. Anyway, I've looked it up & it was a Central Florida Crowned Snake.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl....

That's just freaky about snakes biting after they're dead, could have nightmares about that.

Ann, what an interesting snake, I've never seen that one either, how cool.

I can't even begin to tell you the amount of snakes I've encountered in my 40 plus years living here in Florida, being a camper and hiker, but have yet to come across a rattler. Only one I ever encountered was in GA mountains.

Consider yourself lucky Sherri! We see then pretty frequently

I am pretty sure you folks know your snakes and I like to think I do too. But, I get such a kick out of the posts on NextDoor, every time someone posts a photo of a snake and asks for an ID half the respondents say it is a rattler or a cottonmouth and to kill it.
I have never seen one of those little Crowned snakes and I wonder if I just never realized there were snakes that tiny other than he worm snake - which I have seen.

All my life here Alice & all the stomping around in woods & swamps & gardening & I never saw a crowned snake before either. However, even full grown, they are very small so it would be very easy to miss them.

Oh Sherri, you really are lucky. There was a period of about 10 or 15 years there where the dh & I averaged a rattler (ground, timber or diamondback) or cottonmouth every other day. It really did get to us mentally.

That is how it was at one of our first homes about 50+ years ago. We lived beside a swamp in SC and it meant nothing to see enormous rattlers sunning themselves on the sidewalks during cool mornings. One time some neighborhood teenage boys caught and killed a 5' one that was about 3" in diameter right in my driveway. It took two of them to carry this critter off. I did not go outside or let my toddler play outside for days.

Friday nite I heard a LOUD pounding on my door. It was neighbor's dd...did I have a flashlight as there was a snake caught in her front door. She had taken out a bag of trash and when she opened the door to go back in a snake dropped down and started in so she slammed the door on it. She was terrified. I went with her flashlight and gloves in hand...it was a baby red rat snake no bigger around then my finger. I picked it up close to the door, closed it again and off we went to my side of the road. Did I say she was terrified??? She would have had a heart attack if she had been at my house when an adult one was taking a tour along my living room wall...red on the green wall was rather pretty!!!

I'm glad you are able to rescue it Ginger! Your good deed for the day.
Who doesn't have a flashlight?

She was probably outside w/o a flashlight and did not want to open that door to get in to get one. I can see being careful if you can't see what you are dealing with.

That is correct, Alice especially since her twin girls under 2 were inside sleeping. I'm just happy it was a "good" snake. Not sure how I would have dealt with a rattler since the head was inside. Would not have been cool to pop a cap at the front door!! Lol

Oh sorry, I was just assuming she went out the back door to go to Ginger's house.

Yup and the back door was locked. Now picture me at 72 climbing in a window...NOT...lol

😂😂😂

ardesia said:I am pretty sure you folks know your snakes and I like to think I do too. But, I get such a kick out of the posts on NextDoor, every time someone posts a photo of a snake and asks for an ID half the respondents say it is a rattler or a cottonmouth and to kill it.
I have never seen one of those little Crowned snakes and I wonder if I just never realized there were snakes that tiny other than he worm snake - which I have seen.

This does always disturb me that people are so fast to kill snakes. There is a banded water snake that everyone misidentifies as a cottonmouth. SO many are needlessly killed. We don't kill and of the snakes we find on our property. We have had big (I am talking BIG) rattlesnakes relocated before by a herpetologist. Because we have dogs, and don;t want them at risk. But they don;t kill them just take them somewhere else and turn them loose.

Some water snakes have sort of a triangular shaped head and are very aggressive, they can be scary until you know what you are dealing with. We once lived on a river in Maryland and there was a hollow dead tree on the shoreline. We had moved there in December when everything was frozen. The following spring all these snakes, dozens of them, swam up and went into the tree. We assumed the tree was a breeding spot. We were able to determine that they were non venomous but they did chase the kids if they were swimming. You would hear someone yell "SNAKE" and all the kids would jump up on the dock. One struck at my husband once so the following winter when everything was frozen again we took the tree down. For the remaining years we lived in that house some snakes (not as many) would show up each spring looking for the tree.