Interested to hear other's thoughts on what species this could be and why!
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Man finds, kills giant snake on Gaston County property
On Easter weekend a man in Lowell, North
Carolina killed a 12-14 foot snake. The man lives on 3.5 acres in a relatively
rural part of town. He was unable to give an accurate identification on the
snake but it was confirmed that it was non-venomous. When describing his
initial reaction to finding the snake near a brush nearby an old barn on the
property, he stated “I have no idea if it’s poisonous or not. I was
assuming it’s poisonous because in my mind snakes equal poisonous”.
Unfortunately in this case, the snake looks most similar to a rat snake which
is harmless. Given that there is only one blurry picture of the species, I
inferred it was a pine snake, Pituphis
melanoleucus. This is because the shape of the body, the color variation on
its back and belly, and the location that it was found. In the field guide it
states that record for this species is 105 inches, almost 9 feet, indicating
that this snake could be a new record. Later in the article the man who killed
the snake stated, “Now hearing that they kill poisonous snakes and also eat the
food of poisonous snakes. Once I posted the picture, I had people telling me that,
so I do feel a little bad”. This happens all too often when individuals who are
uneducated in snake identification decide to kill a snake because they assume
its venomous because "snakes equal poisonous". In this case, the article states that out of 37 local species of
snakes in North Carolina, only six of them are venomous. If this man was
informed on the identification of local snake species, this snake could’ve lived to grow even more
and continue to protect his property from rodents and other pests. It is
impossible to inform every individual about every snake species in their area,
but I think it is crucial for rural communities to educate citizens on how to
identify the venomous species.
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/weird/man-finds-kills-giant-snake-on-gaston-county-property/275-c746a1fb-b43a-4146-882a-a7a3a2b365ab
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1 comment:
I agree with the article - black rat snake. They're big, they love to hang out in spaces like that woodshed structure shown in the video, and they have the "loaf of bread" shaped body. However, I'm not a fan of the perspective-warping photography which makes the snake look huge (and also makes it tough to figure out how big it actually was). I'm glad the video advised leaving snakes alone, even if you don't know what they are!
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