Hey all! So a few days ago, on April 22nd, we went out in the field for lab (like we do every Thursday). The weather was very nice, about low 70s and partly cloudy. The site we went to was in Hueston Woods State Park. We kind of just were driving in Hueston Woods and Tammy and her friend pulled off the road at this beautiful site where there were very small waterfalls in a some-what active stream. Once we exited our vans, I was ready to go. Like I had that feeling that today was the day where i go crazy and catch a few herps, and that I did!!
So getting out of the van, we began walking down the stream and about 1/2 a mile down, I began looking with Nate. Then i said 'hey nate, help me lift this rock'. The rock was about 2 feet from the water, completely dry. This rock was pretty heavy though, it was definitely a 2 man job to lift it, haha. So we lifted this rock, and BAM! 2 queen snakes. One of the snakes was about 8 inches long, and the other was ~13 inches. I feel like neither the large or small snake were fully grown, because these snakes tend to be around 16-30 inches long. Now, as we've learned in lecture, the Queen Snake (Regina septemvittata) is a non-venomous water snake. It is part of the Colubridae (harmless snake) family. I feel like the 2 snakes may have felt all the movement in the water (from us) and they were basically just hiding from any human or predator contact. When we went to pick them up, they quickly went for the water (because these snakes are great swimmers and are known to go into the water when threatened). These snakes are known to live in the midwest US, in states such as ohio, indiana, kentucky, etc. Anyways, it was a great find and Nate and I were really happy to find these guys. I don't think Tammy got a photo of it, so I uploaded this picture from: http://www.nearctica.com/herps/snakes/colubrid/Rseptem.htm.
Thanks!! (Posted by Tom Kowalski)
No comments:
Post a Comment