Thursday, November 6, 2008

Do you see what I see?

I was recently doing some field work in Winter Haven, FL (woohoo! finally some time in the field for work...I live for this!). My field partner, KT, and I were taking groundwater samples when KT looked up and said "oh, my, do you see that snake?". Where? Where? I don't see it!! (can you see the snake hiding in this vegetation?Well, I didn't either. Until she pointed out a nice little snake climbing in the tree about 2 feet from my nose. And here he is! How cute! He was just hanging out and trying to blend in. You can see from above that he really did blend in very well, but once I put a flash on him, he really lit up. How beautiful!
This is a yellow rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata), distinguished by his color and the black racing stripes down his back. Hehe, and check this out - the yellow rat snake is also called a Chicken Snake! Is that because he eats chickens or because he's a scaredy cat?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They eat chickens if they're big enough, and can swallow eggs too. Actually a very docile snake...they don't mind being handled as much as a lot of others...great pics K!