Some variety of Garter snake, but I’m not sure which. Totally harmless, but can still surprise you if not expecting company! Jeff
I'm not sure why, but I have serious doubts that the pupil shape on a snake guarantees it is not poisonous... Anyone want to chime in? Its just like here in the US at least, many think that a triangular head on a snake is indicative. In many instances it is (heat vipers as a group for instance tend to be); but then there are the coral snakes - biological cousins of cobras if I recall correctly -- that do NOT have triangular heads and are definitely poisonous! Just one example. I'd have to look them up, but I don't think black mambas nor fer-de-lance snakes have strikingly (ooh, what a pun!) triangular heads either. Am Yisrael Chai! Moshe ben David
I stand by my scream like a girl and run away. Early in my US Navy career, I went through a desert survival school. While conducting a tactical land navigation at night course, I was struck by a rattlesnake. luckily for me, I had turned my foot outward to back peddle (I had just kneeled behind the only bush around for miles) and it struck the bottom of my boot. That was my first scream like a girl and run away encounter. There have been many more since then....
Fer-de-lance does indeed have a triangular head. As to round pupils, do you really want to get close enough to check if you're not sure? There are a lot of old wives tales about snakes...one of which is that rattlesnakes always rattle when you approach them. I can tell you first-hand that one is bogus. My father & I were rabbit hunting in New Mexico when I was about 6 or 7. My dad said "stop". He was not a guy you didn't listen to, so I stopped. Next thing I hear is a bang. One more step and I would have stepped on the rattler. Luckily, he wasn't a 7 year old kid & had a lot of awareness about his environment. Living in Texas is not that much different than when I lived in New Mexico. Texas has all the venomous snakes that inhabit the U.S. The joke used to be the Devil would live in Texas and rent out Hell...
Wasn't sure about the Fer-de-lance. Yeah, I've read and seen videos that clearly document that rattlers DO NOT always rattle before striking out! So... does Texas even have coral snakes? For some odd reason I've always thought those were primarily found down in the swampy areas etc of Florida, maybe southern Georgia near the panhandle; not sure about Louisiana... Am Yisrael Chai! Moshe ben David
Yes, Texas does have coral snakes, as does much of the southern U.S. When my boys were Cub Scout age, I was on a retreat near Tyler, Tx with them and the camp had one caged that had been caught on premises. They are small snakes compared to the vipers and lacking the fangs that vipers have, most envenomations come from handling them. Interestingly, there's some controversy about the Texas coral snakes being considered a separate species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snake#Distribution_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrurus_tener
