Snakes! Why Did It Have to Be Snakes!
Red corn snake
by Mia McCormick
Even Indiana Jones would love to explore our new Snakes of the Essstuary Exhibit! We could help him conquer his fear of these amazing and vital reptiles. Snakes are often misunderstood as scary or dangerous, but ours are positively the cutest around. Through our ‘Snakes of the Essstuary’ exhibit, the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center aims to help visitors see snakes in a more positive light, understand the vital role they play in our ecosystem, and inspire action to protect them.
In Florida we have 44 native snakes. Some get more attention than others, like the five venomous viper snakes, and we hear a lot about the invasive pythons and boa constrictors that create problems for our native animals. But there are dozens of important native snakes that live in our gardens, parks, and wild spaces, making our world better every day! These snakes often prey on pests like rats and mice that could carry disease, invade our homes or eat our crops.
Of the four snakes that you’ll meet at our Discovery Center exhibit, one displays mimicry. That means it is non-venomous, but it’s scales mimic the colors or patterns of venomous snakes to scare off predators.
Meet Jack, our Scarlet king snake on the left. At first glance his scales look like the pattern of the venomous coral snake, but look closely and you can see that the pattern is different. It can be hard to spot the difference in the wild, but one sure way to know is to look at the snake's head. Jack has a red and black head, a coral snake will have yellow and black, like a bumble bee.
Salazar Slytherin our Florida banded water snake is another snake that is often confused with a venomous look-a-like. Banded water snakes resemble a venomous pit viper called the water moccasin or cottonmouth. Both have a reddish brown to black pattern on their backs that darkens with age. And they both like to swim in fresh or brackish water. One way to tell the difference is to look for the protruding eyebrow and white lines on the head of the cottonmouth. Salazar Slytherin, doesn’t have any of those features, he has beautiful dark vertical bars on his mouth and is non-venomous.
Get ready to be dazzled with color because our last two snakes have eye catching scales.
Rex the Red corn snake
Red corn snakes like Rex, can be found in lots of different habitats. You might find one curled up under a rock or near a tree in pine forests, crop fields, or your own garden. Their base color can vary from orange to brownish gray and you’ll see large reddish brown blotches on their bodies. These snakes stay towards the mainland and can be found in every county in Florida.
Neytiri the yellow rat snake
Last but not least is, Neytiri our beautiful yellow rat snake. This snake is generally bright or straw yellow with large dark brown stripes running down it’s back. The sunshine state is where you’ll find the brightest, golden-yellow ones. Rat snakes like to spend most of their time underground, but they are good climbers, you might catch one hunting in a tree. While many snakes eat frogs and lizards, these guys prefer, you guessed it, rats! Yellow rat snakes are primarily nocturnal, so you’ll have a better chance to see one with a flashlight at night. Where should you look? During they day you might spot a long intact snakeskin left behind after it sheds, that’s a good place to start.
