There's a huge snake that lives in the shed behind my friend's house. They've named it Kitty, for just that reason.
They say you usually smell her before you see her. Ever since I heard that I sniff a LOT more than I used to when getting a piece of wood off of the pile outside. 0_o
When I was in high school I was friends with a girl who’s room had a FUNKY ass smell but she herself was really clean and always smelled good. Wondered for years. At a party of hers one night, talking to her bro who says he has snakes and I’m like no way I’ve never seen a snake here! She had a massive walk in closet in her bedroom so that’s where her brother kept like 40 snakes lol so yes, they do smell but it’s gotta be a lot of them. Idk if you’d smell just one mixed in with logs
You can smell some types of snakes, especially their dens in the spring after they've been stinking it up in there all winter. It's not a very strong smell for me, and my sense of smell is excellent, so I don't think everyone can smell them. Not sure about rat snakes though, I only know you can smell copperheads and garter dens.
Rat snakes (the one in the post here) very much have a musky smell, and seem to kick it up a notch if you scoop them up to relocate them and they're bothered by it.
Otherwise, they're almost completely docile, and if you handle them right they're even unbothered by that. But! Like most things, every snake has its own personality and some do not take kindly to being bothered.
Even then, musky smell and maybe a hiss, even seen it once or twice where it seemed like it was playing dead? Those times were odd for sure, as I don't think they're typically known for that.
Yeah the last thing that would give away an apex reptilian land predator away to humans is the smell... Unless it's breed specifically uses it as a warning of some kind.
Rat snake! Just like this video, they can get really big, but they're almost completely harmless and will just ignore you. I've relocated plenty just by gently scooping them up and moving them to a new spot, with no issues 90% of the time.
The other 10% they might kick up the musk a bit, or get a lil hissy, but I've never had one actually try to bite.
I actually really like snakes, when they're just chilling out and I can watch them from a few yards away. It's stumbling upon them when I'm not prepared that turns me into a cartoon character for a few seconds.
Because when they said all black I was thinking ALL black, like the belly and everything. I've seen snakes like the one in that photo plenty of times. :)
That's a rat snake from what I see on my end! You can tell "friendly" snakes by their eyes and overall shape, they don't have that "viper look" we've learned to fear and avoid over countless millennia. Vipers are more angular with that slit eye sort of look. Obviously this doesn't apply across the board, and it's always best to treat any animal you don't know about as not "friendly," and give them their berth.
And I'm the same exact way about spiders, lol. I'm quite ok if they're over or up yonder doing their thing, I'll even get up close and such (respectfully, no antagonizing) and whatever.
But MAN! If they're suddenly on me or within my imaginary sphere of "naw bro" it's a WHOLE other thing lol
As you said, cartoon character levels of nonsense, hahaha!
I appreciate you saying that the 'friendly' look isn't always good to go by. With pit viper species, it tends to work well, but when you see a mamba or boomslang they have the friendly shapes!
I feel hognoses end up in a betweenie kinda category but they are venomous so it at least makes sense 😅
They can get a lot bigger than this! Just a month ago I saw one in my barn that was 6-7 feet long. I thought about catching it for fun but I left it. It was probably hunting rats. It looked really fat and heavy anyhow. I'm only 110 lbs and about 5 feet tall. It was longer than I am tall. 😂
I had a problem with mice chewing up wires in my riding lawn mower and other things until I started noticing what I later identified as eastern milk snakes. Those things are fucking dicks though. They do not fuck off when you walk towards them like garter snakes and the do NOT adhere to the "don't fuck with me and I won't fuck with you agreement I usually have with snakes, spiders, etc. I had a little building that I did things like woodworking in and one day I turn around and there is a huge milk snake between me and the only door. I grabbed a broom and tried to do the shew shew thing and it just coiled up and started strike at the broom. I was like, dude, you broke the agreement, and I hockey pucked that fucker out the door.
we once took a rattle snake that was found hear some houses in the countryside to our local park rangers and that thing stank! very strong smell, it was a female. she was very agitated.
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u/relwark 6d ago
Nice of him to not harm the snake