search on puff snake got it, the puff adder
most info says africa, but at least two I know of last year, one in Fritch, the other in Borger
http://www.junglephotos.com/africa/afanimals/reptiles/puffadder.shtml
this looks more like it,and shows it "puffed"
http://academic.sun.ac.za/forlang/snakes/puffadder.html
This message was edited Feb 23, 2005 11:36 AM
and this gives some garden how-tos
http://academic.sun.ac.za/forlang/snakes/garden.html
This message was edited Feb 23, 2005 11:37 AM
BEWARE
Puff adders in the Panhandle? That is not a good thing!
Well, I am hoping the two snakes did not cross paths, and therefore don't have mates LOL.
Thank goodness I didn't see them personally, I would have freaked. The only snake I've seen in a while was on our road to the driveway. The silly thing (bull snake) was laying on the asphalt sunning, and if someone else drove by I was sure they would run it over. So I had a garden tool in my trunk, and proceeded to use the handle to get the guy to move along. Apparently, he didn't appreicate his nap being interrupted, and struck at me! About that time a guy on another street looked my way. I had never been so startled in all my life Or so fortunate to actually have someone drive by when you need them... Had no idea a bull snake would do that, usually you just push them on their way. Maybe he was half puff half bull LOL. So the guy turned out to be an experienced handler, and got the snake up and across the road to larger pastures. Haven't seen him since. The horses out there probably stomped him :-(
Hey brendabloomer in Center! I'm just down the road from ya...south of Shelbyville. Actually, DS goes to S'ville Middle School! Nice to meet ya!
Down this way, we have a dreadful problem with timber rattlers. 17 sighted on our property alone last season. Several years ago, the forestry dept. began releasing (or they say "relocating") these rattlers from South TX. Last spring, hundreds were relocated to FM 353, approx. 2-3 miles from our place as the crow flies. EEEK!
DH has spoken with our wildlife biologist (for the deer lease) who tells him that many of the snakes are fitted(?) with locator chips for research. Seems an adult male will travel less than 2 acres once he gets situated in a spot he likes! Also, it is illegal to kill these snakes because they are endangered. Yep, I'd like to endanger them!
We have 52 acres and most of the snakes have been found in the front of the property (house is in the back). The closest one to the house "got it" when DH hit it with the bush hog! OOOPS! :P
I really worry about my dogs getting bit. Steel (black lab) and Sammy (Feist Terrier) love to run around the entire place & play in the creek. They tend to stay out of the pond, which is where lots of cottonmouths are! DS shoots them with his open-sight .22 (he says it's good practice!) They are very cautious around snakes, Steel is the best "warning system" I've ever seen, but if they are running around & just get struck....
Sorry to "rattle" on & hijack your thread, this is one subject we really pay attention to! Thanks for the warnings brenda, I was wondering when we would start seeing our slithering critters around!
The "puff adders" could have been this guy maybe? Go to the bottom of page where it says 'discussion'
http://www.enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesFT.asp?fotogID=525&curPageNum=7&recnum=AR0098
Thanks Dumb!
Very likely, though I didn't see them. That is a relief! Certainly the one I tried to move was a bull snake though, it was more than six feet long and marked accordingly.
I guess the snakes are out due to the warm spells we have been having. We could all pray for cold weather to scare them back underground? LOL
the garden how-to link above gives good snake safety tips, everyone should read it and be prepared, and always have a long-hadled something in your trunk or in reach!
Here is your bull snake, sometimes called a gopher snake. My experience with these guys is that they can put on a really aggressive show. Even imitate a cobra spreading its neck.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/record_species_162_2.html
When I was a kid I thought they were fun to tease. :-(
Shame on you, teasing an innocent bull snake! They are very territorial, and kill rattlers, you know!
Can't get the pic to load, might be my browser.
Yes, got it just took time. When I lived in Calif., we had "gopher" snakes that were rather small and not agressive. The bull snakes in Texas are so big, I had no idea they were related!
I am going to email a friend in Amarillo who lives in the country with two small children, so she knows they are coming out
This message was edited Feb 23, 2005 12:38 PM
In California, I had an encounter with what had to be an 8 footer. I followed him/her into the understory not teasing it at all (I was all growed up by then) when it had had enough. The guy reared and emmited what sounded like a roar (to me). Spread his neck like a cobra, made a false charge, played dead, reared back up and struck at me and, generally made a fool of me. I backed off, gave him the peace sign and got the heck outta there. I will never forget that snake!
I know that peace sign really meant something to him! :-)
When I get home (yes, I'm ducking in here during break at work) I'll have to find the pictures I took last year of something on a country road near Independence. As I was driving up, from a very long way off, I saw something "standing up" in the road. As I got closer, I thought it was a branch that had fallen and landed so that the bent part was sticking way up - about 4 feet. Closer still it started to creep me out, it looked an awful lot like a really huge snake "standing up", and looking straight at me as I was driving closer. I drove as close as I felt I could, and then stopped the car and turned it off. It was, indeed, a snake, and it was just me and him, looking at each other. I took a couple of pictures hanging out of the car before he just dropped and quickly slithered off into the ditch. My heart never beat so fast!
Unfortunately, the picture doesn't give a very good idea of scale and depth, mostly looks like a stick on the ground. But I'll look for it anyway.
I'll be looking for it!!
I can't believe it, but I can't find the snake pictures! Really, seriously, I'm not making it up, I really did see that humongous snake "standing up" in the middle of the road... really.... I'm not kidding...
I just can't find the pictures...
too bad you didn't get it on video, you could have won some money...
that's OK I believe you anyway, and from your description I can visualize that just fine LOL too close for comfort
Whew! Thanks Tamara, for believing me. I really was surprised that I was not totally traumatized, it was such a creepy experience.
Maggie I think it may have been a Spread Adder. Not sure if that's the correct name but I have seen them before. They raise their head and spread their neck out like a cobra. I don't think they are poisonious but can cause heart attacks. lol Mydaisy-they released 3 or 4 55 gallon barrels of the rattle snakes out and yes they have made it to our area. critter-I don't kill all snakes. Once I chased a snake to see what kind it was. Turned out to be a king snake so I wouldn't let my son shoot it.
"I don't think they are poisonious but can cause heart attacks."
Ain't that the truth!
While driving down the highway on a HOT summer day I saw a very large snake trying to cross the road ahead of me. Never saw a snake move as fast or jump so high. Looked like a plane that landed and was bouncing on the runway. Funny and spooky at the same time!
Whoa! I don't even want to imagine snakes jumping on the road!
I think he was trying to fly over that hot asphalt.
like playing hot potato!
Exactly
Man, I know how bad it feels to walk bare-footed on hot pavement, can you imagine bare-bellied!?
That is what is commonly understood as evolution. The more hot asphalt, the more snakes grow wings to fly --- eeeek!
Here is what we DON'T wanna see:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=1307460
in our garden or at the Round-ups....
I don't mind seeing them, just don't wanna get in a fight with one. LOL
Me not be wanting to fight no snake to no, lol
My property backs up to the woods on tha east side and tha south end.
I guess we've seen most animals and many snakes on it one time or tha other.
In Jul 02 I took this pic, from the tractor. I knew they were down along the creek but! Only seen it tha once, don't go walking back there at night anymore.
And you're still alive....I would have had a heart attack!!!!
I don't guess I'd be doing any walking down there AT ALL, much less at night!
I'm trying to figure out whatcha got there.... Looking at the stripes on the side.... Is that a young gator? Or possibly a saltwater croc? (I don't know where San Jacinto County is; I'm *gasp* not a Texan, although I'm lurking on this forum!) How big was it?
Thought you guys might find this map and article interesting:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/nature/wild/vertebrate/reptiles/americanAlligator/media/pdf/distributionOfAlligators.pdf
Hey, critter'ist,
You're welcome to lurk anytime you want! Heck, you can even speak out now and again, and we won't mind one bit! :-)
John,
That map was quite interesting. I know that I've heard there are NO waterways- man-made lakes, etc- in TX that DON"T have these guys.
I think we have one in the creek that borders our property. Last summer DH found a nest...don't know if it's from a gator or a big turtle (can't remember what they are called now, but these I have seen). The turtles are endangered in Texas, but can be sold in Louisiana. I don't know if turtle nests even look the same as a gator nest : ).
Looks to me like I am out of reach, being up in Fritch. Probably even Lake Meredith is free of them LOL. A few years ago, a lady here in town opened an exotic pet shop, and she had a small gator from Louisiana as a watch dog. Her name was gatorade, and she was barely two foot long, and would not get any longer because she was kept in such a small cage. But her teeth cut right through a broom handle, and she was cranky and not safe to be near!
John, thanks for the map. Charlie, watch where ya step! Critterologist, you are welcome anytime :-)
A couple years ago a rancher here in Grayson County reported a four footer in his stock pond. The article in the paper said at certain times of the year some gators just up and take off overland in search of greener pastures. While unusual here this is supposed to be their historical northern and western limit. The lady that cuts my hair in Willis, OK. has an 8"x10" b&w photo hanging on the wall with a 14' alligator discovered while building the dam for Lake Texoma in rhe early 40s. Fisherman from the lake have been known to tell tales of gator sightings in the bayous. But then, these are reports from fisherman.
Thanks John, I am certain none are big enough to eat my thirty pound child, thanks so much for that reassurance, yeppers, just fisherman tales, no doubt about it, no gators in that lake, no sirree, too far north.... egad...
Some of the black bass have been seen following small children along the shoreline, though.
oh, boy, you are really asking for it, you just wait! And stop hijacking the snake thread (j/k)
Thanks for not castigating me for being a nonTexan! This is the only thread I've posted to so far, but I'm picking up lots of good information here to pass along to a dear friend who recently moved to Irving. I really miss having Doris next door, she is the sweetest lady, and we were gardening buddies too! Unfortunately, she isn't online yet, and she's having trouble arranging transportation to the senior center so she can take a computer class. (DART will send a bus, but only to the gate of the community, and she can't walk that far with her bad knee.) She used to surf gardening web sites with a little assistance from me, so she misses having that ready source of information. Her daughter keeps promising to show her how to use their computer, but since Toni has been working at another location in Washington state for months, that doesn't work either! So, meanwhile, she gets information from me, and I put her on a bunch of catalog mailing lists.
Well, now I've *really* hijacked this thread..... sorry..... let's get back to the reptiles!
I was once treed by a gator......
Well, there are more than a few cottonmouths in the lake. There! Back on track.
John, I sure hope you steer clear of that barber on an OU/Texas weekend ;-) hehehe
Snakes, gators, child-stalking bass, and now back to snakes......what an uplifting thread this is ROTFL
-Julie