Subject: Snake in fishtank/ID?
From: (TYNK 7)
Date: 11/24/2003 10:54 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Subject: Snake in fishtank/ID?
From: "Bob in PA"
Date: 11/23/2003 4:04 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Figured everyone might find this interesting, sorry for the cross
post. -

I got a frantic phone call yesterday from my girlfriend who said
something about a snake in the fishtank. After I got her to calm down, the
story went something like this: She had gone downstairs into her
fathers fish room to feed the fish, and saw a tail sticking up from the
water. Upon further investigation, it turned out to be an 18" snake curled
up in 55 gallon sword tail tank.
The really interesting part is this; the snake had to A) get in the
house and into the finished basement. B) climb up a table of approx. 3 feet
high. C) climb up into the 18 inch high tank. Here is a link to a picture,
can anyone ID it for me? http://trains99.tripod.com/snake.html
I know it's not poisonous, and I'm thinking some kind garter snake? I'm
in SE Pennsylvania.

Bob




Holy Mama!
Can you imagine.
Snake looks like it could be either a Garter (folks often call the "gardner
snakes" which is incorrect), snake or a Ribbon Snake (which there are more
than
one type).
Do they have better pictures of it?
Like out of the water?
The Garter Snake's black isn't as shiny as the Ribbon snake's, and their
yellow
isn't as vibrant as the Ribbon's as well.
*Hubby and tried out a few different trails this summer (he runs and I ride a
Mnt. Bike), and saw many new types of snakes. I loved it, but he gets the
creeps like crazy!
It was a fun summer. *snickering at hubby*
= )



I did some checking on the site I used to identify a smake I had never seen
(turned out to be a Copperhead sneak. Venomous too!
Anyway,
Here's a site that you can see how 4 different snake would appear to look the
same to the untrained eye (*most of us* hehe).......
http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cbd/herpdist/splist.html
Go down to where it lists snakes.
Click on the links for:
Western Ribbon
Plains Garter
Eastern Ribbon
and Common Garter Snakes.
It's unreal how similar they look.
Now think of that picture of the snake in the tank.
Which do you think it is now?