On our last herping adventure to Fairlawn Plantation, I began to stray deeper into the wetland. Here, small, shallow bodies of water are scattered across the leafy landscape. Determined to find a snake, my eyes began to strain as I searched the terrain. Next thing I know, I am standing right above a beautiful Red-bellied Water Snake (Nerodia erythrogaster)! Its solid light-brown dorsal coloration, keeled scales, and bright red chin allowed me to immediately recognize the species (pictured above). The most distinguishing characteristic of an adult Red-bellied Water Snakes is--as the name implies--their reddish-orange belly, which is completely un-patterned. Their dosrum is also plain and ranges from light to chocolate-brown. Many other Water Snakes may be uniformly brown above, but they have strongly patterned bellies. Young Red-bellied Water Snakes have dorsal patterns that resemble a Banded Water Snake, but they can still be identified by their un-patterned belly.
These harmless, live-bearing snakes are semi-aquatic, and are usually spotted basking by the edge of the water, as was this one. Their diet consists primarily of amphibians, which were quite prevalent at the Plantation, but they eat fish as well. Compared to other Water Snakes, N. erythrogaster is known to be more terrestrial because they will often wander far away from water during hot or humid weather.
Surprisingly, the snake wasn't the slightest bit threatened by my presence even though I was standing only 2 or 3 feet away. Usually wild N. erythrogaster are very defensive and will often strike at someone if they try to handle it. Fortunately, in an attempt to capture it so that I could show the class, I first nudged the snake with the end of my net. It wasn't until I went in with my hand that he decided to bolt. First, he quickly weaved through the small pools of water to lose me, but was unsuccessful. Once he began to evade on dry land, however, he was much harder to track and eventually lost me. This is interesting because a source that I read said Red-bellied Water Snakes usually take to land when threatened, whereas other Water Snakes do not. Regardless of being unable to catch him, I was thrilled with this first-time encounter with such a beautiful and interesting snake.
3 comments:
So cool! How big was the snake you saw?
What a beautiful snake. I came across a northern water snake the other day while fishing and it escaped to the water rather than land. The one I saw was fairly large--roughly 3 ft. I wonder what the advantage of having a solid colored belly vs checkerboarded is. Would you consider the reddish belly as aposematic coloration?
I saw this one too, it was about 3 feet long, I think. It was really cool to witness this snake catching game, as I was able to see how the snake moves in aquatic environment. It was quite fast in water, and pretty hard to spot since it goes under water. I think if he attempted to put the nest on it as the first measure, we could probably gotten it.
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