Looks like snaky snek, the big gopher snake I caught the other day is hanging around. Went out to the back yard and found it hunting along the back wall where some of the salvage lumber is stored.

I really wish I had a mouse to feed it (sorry, mouse!). It would be fun to make friends with a big wild snake. How cool would that be? Go out in the yard and whistle like I do for the lizards and have a big ol' snake crawl up and hang out?

#HerpReport #Snake #GopherSnake #herps #LizardReport #snek

Big news today was seeing a 4 foot long gopher snake patrolling the yard! This one was quite docile when I picked it up. I should've taken more close-up photos. They can be bitey and sometimes will coil up in "strike" position, shake their tail, puff out their cheeks and try to convince you that they are in fact rattlesnakes.

This is a form of Batesian mimicry where, in this case, rattlesnakes went through the long evolutionary expense of developing both venom and signaling, then the gopher snake shows up in a Spirit Halloween "Dangerous Rattlesnake" costume and hopes you won't be able to tell the difference.

But this one was chill and after handling it for a few minutes I set it next to the house and it zipped through a hole into the crawlspace, the same place I had removed a rattlesnake from recently.

#Snake #LizardReport #GopherSnake #herps