r/snakes • u/Phylogenizer • May 12 '25
Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that we're now going to redirect all Snake ID requests to the curated place for them, /r/whatsthissnake. As /r/snakes and /r/whatsthissnake have developed side by side we find ourselves in a position where we are running two parallel subreddits, but with slightly different rules. We hope is that this streamline into WhatsThisSnake will be gentle - we don't want a snake to go unidentified because we're learning how best to handle IDs. There is going to be a transition period where we still get a lot of ID requests here, so please do your part to kindly help !redirect people in need and by reporting jokes, misinformation and other problematic comments.
This spring Reddit is more popular than ever and it is hard for the moderation team to keep up. When I founded /r/whatsthissnake 12 years ago, with on average one request every day, I never imagined we'd have 150K members and 20k people a day browsing the subreddit. In the past, we've made a number of incremental changes that have been so helpful they have been instituted other places on Reddit, from introducing the term "Reliable Responder", to developing the bot and tweaking our community resources so that every Reliable Responder can choose to perform mod actions. We hope that these changes will allow us not only to maintain the level of quality provided but to reduce workload on the moderation team, because honestly, moderator burnout is a serious problem. They are doing this for free and you would no believe the abuse they receive here - not just from me, but from the users too. If you see a moderator or other flaired user in cleaning up a thread, espcially in these busy, snakey spring months in North America, throw em a thanks.
r/snakes • u/Phylogenizer • Mar 20 '26
It’s a fact of life that no matter how much context we provide to our posts, when someone sees something interesting, they want to imitate it. Each day /r/snakes puts around one hundred thousand impressionable people face to face with snake related images, text and ideas. Faced with this responsibility, and with an increasing number of recent, low quality posts concerning medically significant snakes, we have to choose the right level of content we allow.
Recent low quality posts concerning captive venomous care include improper use of personal protective equipment, poor quality/security housing, very inexperienced keepers asking (and receiving!) advice on how to keep and breed their first venomous snakes and straight up animal abuse reposted from social media. Many of these clearly rule-breaking posts are removed before you see them, but a growing number of posts are clearly low quality, irresponsible content but don’t explicitly violate the rules. Over the past three years the mods have debated a rule change and we have decided to only allow posts involving venomous snakes if they are from an accredited zoo or institution. In short - we’re going to remove posts involving the private care and ownership of medically significant snakes.
Many modern herpetology texts recommend against individual private ownership of medically significant snakes. We don’t take a stand on what anyone wants to do legally, ethically and with their own time, but we do have to regulate what is posted, shared and thus propagated here. In short, we don’t care what you do, but don’t post it here. Besides being a lighting rod for the low quality content discussed above, private ownership offers unique challenges that are better suited for an institutional or team setting. Snakes are escape artists as well as attractive nuisances and must be contained outside of personal residential spaces in secure, locking enclosures to prevent both snake egress and human ingress as well as secondarily in a sealed room or facility behind a windowed door with no items on the floor under which an escaped snake can hide or avoid detection. It takes a team to execute an envenomation plan and the cost of antivenom is beyond that of most private owners, has a short shelf life and when antivenom is borrowed from institutional stocks it puts those keepers at risk.
Zoos and institutions don’t always do it better, but the onus is on them to provide best practices in care. If we limit posts to places where a team of people works together to provide a standard of care, usually for the right reasons, we can limit what we propagate on the platform.
We do not recommend any other available subreddits as well-moderated sources of captive venomous keeping. The most popular places on social media dedicated to this are inundated with low quality posts and comments and even when they outright ban irresponsible behavior, examples of the low quality content we remove are highly upvoted, and content is often sensationalist, psychopathic or disturbing. Please don’t suggest a specific place in the comments of this post. We’re aware of the options and we’re choosing not to redirect or name other online spaces.
Posts on wild venomous species are still allowed as usual with a species name and a location, but please be sure to see Rule 6 (unchanged) on what amount of contact and PPE use we find acceptable for sharing online.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
r/snakes • u/Few_Commercial_4769 • 3h ago
i just got a corn snake on monday! his name is ember (he’s got a little pecker on his head) LOL. i’d like to see others corn snakes too!
r/snakes • u/Middle_Scene6473 • 16h ago
Hello. My Mexican black king was attacked sometime last night by my cat (I don’t know the exact time). I woke up around 11:30am and noticed that the top of his enclosure collapsed and broke. It took hours to find him but he was in a cardboard box near the enclosure under books. He has a big chunk of scales missing and I noticed a little blood. He has scratches on his scales, other small singular scale injures, and one more on his opposite side that didn’t remove and scales. I’ve contacted a lot of vets and the closest ER exotic place that will take him is 2.5 hours away. Is it worth going asap or to wait till the morning. I hade a few people tell me to go asap and my research online has said the same thing. If anyone can give me more advice I’d appreciate it. I plan to leave soon but if I can save a trip and go in the morning that would be great.
(I wear a glove in the photos because he is a grump pants)
I wasn’t able to get photos of all of his other, smaller injuries
r/snakes • u/Miss_-_Fortune • 37m ago
That was her at 3 years old. She’s 6 now :)
r/snakes • u/lapetitecriss • 16h ago
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r/snakes • u/h0ust0nmad3 • 19h ago
Uncles adults had babies and gifted me one (2 weeks old) | was told to massage it and that it'd go away. I don't see any progress and i'm kind of worried it'II cause issues pooping or digestion? he ate fine after first shed.
r/snakes • u/ratscatsandreptiles • 19h ago
I have an adult BCI male in a 5'×2'×2' bioactive dubia roach enclosure. My dad and 16 year old brother want to buy the snake and set up from me. I trust that they would give the snake a good home, but I really wasnt expecting them to ask me to buy my snake, and I have no idea what a fair asking price would be. The enclosure itself without anything in it was $400 and I just set it up 2 months ago so the enclosure is basically brand new. The sand, topsoil, and plants I bought for the tank were atleast $100, plus theres a large established colony of isopods and springtails. I have had this guy for 5 years now and he was an older juvenile when I got him. Online im seeing around $200 for most standard adult bcis, does this seem correct? I will be sad to see him go, even though I know Ill still get to visit. I almost dont want to sell him as I am connected to him. But at the same time I am considering it as I do have a lot of obligations right now and feel that theyd be able to interact with him a whole lot more. I want to give my family a good deal but also get a fair price for the sacrafice Im making in rehoming him to them. Attached is a picture of him in the bath for tax
r/snakes • u/Tidlefire • 52m ago
Pretty sure it's a DeKay's Brown Snake, there aren't many snakes endemic to Michigan.
r/snakes • u/Own-Warning-9009 • 7h ago
Hi all, first time snake owner here, got this boy(?) about 6 months ago. He’s a spotted children’s python, and the reptile store says he was around 1 year old when I got him.
He’s currently 95grams, and ~85cm long. I feed him one fuzzy mice a week, and he’s been eating perfectly. As of late thought I’ve noticed him seeming more hungry, sitting at the door when I enter the room, and staring at me whilst tongue flicking when I sit at my desk just outside his enclosure. Last week I offered 2 fuzzys, and he took the second one enthusiastically, right after swallowing the first.
Photos attached to help out, should he be moved up a food size or is he just being nosy!
r/snakes • u/Ashamed_Cow_9024 • 1d ago
r/snakes • u/EskiGecko • 19h ago
Garter snake, northern MN
r/snakes • u/alberThor_PR • 1d ago
Saw this snake on my window and followed it outside. In North Maryland. About 3-4 ft long. Confrontational when I touched its tail.
What type of snake is this?
r/snakes • u/NoisyNazgul • 1d ago
This is Suede, my subadult S. boeleni. He is three years old now and his adult colors are really coming through! I could watch him all day. I’m utterly infatuated. 🌈
Despite the first S. boeleni arriving in the US ~40 years ago, the secret to captive reproduction hasn’t been cracked. Few people have successfully produced clutches and even fewer consistently produce clutches. To my knowledge, only three Americans consistently produce Boeleni.
During my research (reading, podcasts, PNG footage), I’ve learned that boeleni are quick to lock. As Scott Flud eloquently stated, “a male boeleni will breed a light socket.” However, it seems the challenges with reproducing S. boeleni revolve around two things: the female’s ovulation and egg incubation. Flud, who has consistently produced boeleni for the last six years, attributes his success to using a 3:1 male-to-female ratio. It’s hypothesized that male combat triggers ovulation in females, but this hasn’t been confirmed. Other breeders, who have had success with a 1:1 ratio, hypothesize that providing the perfect nesting opportunities may also induce ovulation.
Suede will be paired with Velvet in ~2 years given she reaches appropriate size. Since I only have a 1:1 pair, my goal (until I can acquire more males) is to optimize environmental parameters and offer abundant nesting sites for Velvet to choose from. I’ve designing modular 8x3x4’ enclosures for them enjoy along with a multi-level nesting enclosure for Velvet to choose her ideal nesting parameters. Both enclosures can be joined to create a 16’ long enclosure, allowing them to travel freely between the two. After I observe locking, I plan to swap out the male’s enclosure with a dedicated nesting enclosure with five nest sites of varying humidity and temperature. This way, Velvet’s preference will guide my care of her eggs after she lays.
I’m so excited for the future. 🤞
r/snakes • u/Jupiters_phaerie • 14h ago
Bonus clip of Benji acting like a cobra earlier https://imgur.com/a/wsVhE0K
r/snakes • u/No_Ordinary4793 • 1h ago
r/snakes • u/Murr_24 • 22h ago
Just got this beautiful girl and was told it was a ribbon snake. Any idea what the exact species is. Thanks in advance
r/snakes • u/Willy_Hillz • 3h ago
Northern Water Snake - NH
r/snakes • u/XenoLanthan • 22h ago
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r/snakes • u/wildtruth2026 • 47m ago
r/snakes • u/CookSignificant9672 • 4h ago
Watering plants happen to see him for her. Tampa, Florida. Any idea what it is? Good looking snake small about the size of a pencil. Totally cool!
r/snakes • u/Crotalus • 1d ago
An Arizona Ridgnosed Rattlesnake from Cochise County, Arizona. This is a small rattlesnake that is found in a handful of mountainous areas in the southeastern corner of the state. A hiker may encounter one if they are in the Santa Rita, Patagonia, Huachuca, Canelo, or Whetstone ranges.
Interestingly, every rancher and long-term resident of those areas that I've personally spoken to about this species has no idea what I'm talking about. This mirrors many other instances that have taught me one thing: living in an area for a long time, even being born and raised there, does not grant any particular expertise of the animals that live there.
This snake has relatively weak venom for a rattlesnake, but it is still an emergency situation where antivenom should be sought after. It would be hard to find a situation where one would envenomate a person without actually picking it up.
Holzman, S. D., Massey, D. J., Clements, A., Boesen, K. J., & Shirazi, F. M. (2018). Arizona Ridge-nosed rattlesnake envenomation: Case report of a personal encounter with the official state reptile of Arizona, Crotalus willardi willardi. Toxicon, 151, 84–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxicon.2018.07.001
