Attention snake fans

[Coltess]

I found this dude swimming in my pool this afternoon.
Anyone know if it is poisonous? It was about 2 feet long, maybe a little more, if that helps.

[Ashval]

Looks like a garter snake variety to me, which isn't poisonous...but, I'll let the snake experts speak.

[Britt9081]

My Dad is an amateur herpetologist, and that snake looks like no poisonous snake Ive ever seen. The only native US snakes that are poisonous are the eastern/western diamondback rattlers, the cottonmouth/water mocassin(I know thats spelled wrong), and the coral snake.

[Ashval]

You forgot the copperhead, but yeah, I think that covers them.

[FoxyJama]

He is one of the increasingly rare Thamnophis species, also known as a Ribbon Snake or Garter snake. Throughout the US, many folks refer to them also as 'grass snakes' although generally that name is reserved for Natrix sp. which have only small lines near the head, and no lateral lines down the body.

There are 12 species of rattlesnake in the US, and 9 are found in Texas. There are a total of 15 subspecies of venomous snakes in Texas, and they are all easily identifiable. 14 of them are pit vipers, and the other is the coral snake. You can recognize pit vipers by their triangular head, pits in the face, and vertically split pupils. (notice the very round pupils of our garter snake friend there). Coral snakes are also easy to identify by their warning bands of red, yellow and black. (they're also quite shy, it's quite rare that you would ever get to see one)

Here is a little more info about the poisonous snakes in Texas and how to identify them and what to do in the case of snakebite:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/expltx/jrna ... opperheads

[Zephem]

I usually have snakes similar to that and rat snakes, and also some black snakes running around in my yard all the time when I mow. When I see them I usually say 'hi snake' and let it go away. When I was a lot younger I used to hunt and kill the rat snakes, because they would bite my shoes when I would walk near them and it freaked me out. Now I'm like 'sup' and they go away.

[Coltess]

Thanks y'all.
*goes back to reading about slithering creepy reptiles*

[Coltess]

I've uploaded a short video of the green monster, so feel free to stop by and watch it by clicking on the pic.
It is encoded using h.264 in QuickTime 7, so surf on over to Apple and get QT7.

[Highlander]

Yep.. thats a garter snake... I sw one at my aunt's once, we caughtit, held it for a bit, it was neat.... we let it go, of course.