Lucky Girl. I Hope.

pitbulllady

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
2,290
I found this girl sitting on the blacktop right at the driveway entrance to the teacher parking lot on my way in to work early this morning:


I almost ran her over, thinking that she was a piece of black-and-white cloth, like a bandana or something, because she was coiled up in a square, and it was only at the last second, before it would have been too late, that my "snake radar" went off and I stopped, backed up and moved to the right of her so I could get a good look out the driver's side window to confirm that the object was indeed a King Snake. Unfortunately, as I picked her up, it became apparent that she had already been hit. Her movements were "spastic" and uncoordinated and she was unable to tongue-flick and there was some blood around her mouth. Since it was cloudy, I put her in a snake bag and left her in my truck, hoping for the best. She hopefully had only gotten "dinged" on the head, and when I went out to check on her during my planning period, she had made a lot of progress. She was better able to control her movements, was actively tongue-flicking and following my movements with her head and eyes, though she still seemed to have trouble righting herself if I put her on her back and had trouble holding her head up. By the time I left to go home, though, most of those issues seemed to have resolved. She has good muscle tone all over and is alert and can now hold her head up and parallel to the floor. I am hoping she will make a full recovery, as snakes are remarkable animals in their abilities to bounce back from even serious injuries. She will still vibrate her tail when I pick her up but has made absolutely no attempt to strike or bite, which is what I've come to expect from Eastern Chains. I'm guessing one of the cafeteria employees or custodians had just grazed the snake's head, probably not even knowing there was a snake there due to the darkness and the color of the snake, since they were pretty much the only employees to get there before I did. I can't find any sign of injury anywhere else to the snake's body. She is not moving around much in her enclosure, and I'd guess she is still in quite a bit of pain, so I'm limiting any handling of her. She is a really nice, clean King with crisp white banding, something we don't often see in the locale where I live, where most of the Kings have more of a muddy beige banding.

Close up:


pitbulllady
 

Entomancer

Arachnobaron
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
351
Wow, nice job.

Hopefully she'll make it. I wish that there were more snake species around my neck of the woods, but it's really just Garters until you go out past the residential areas.
 

Walk Alone

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 30, 2009
Messages
98
I cannot see the pics due to restrictions on my computer, but I enjoyed reading the story. All the best for a full recovery. Thank you for helping her. :)
 

The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
11,044
Thanks much!!!!

A few nights ago I saw a Krait on the road. I stopped to check on it and saw a puddle of blood under him. I tried to move him off the road and he gave a convulsive wriggle. (I used a stick and felt quite wise that I had). He was a massive specimen, over 5 feet long and about 2 1/2 inches thick. His yellow bands had turned dusky gold bronze from age. The spinal ridge scale stuck up almost 1/4 inch. I got him onto the verge out of harms way then went home to get the camera. Upon returning I found him gone. I searched a little but there was no sign of him. (I don't put out great effort searching for deadly very angry snakes in the dark by the headlights of my jeep.)
Now you have given me hope he will recover! Fingers crossed for both him and yours!!!
 

pitbulllady

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
2,290
UPDATE-The King Snake seems to be doing much, much better. She still is a bit more lethargic than most, but then again, that could just be her personality. I can place her on my bed and she really doesn't try to go anywhere, but she will move around and is alert. Until this morning all she wanted to do was to hide her head underneath her body, and that was largely the extent of her movement, but this morning she actually stretched out and started to crawl around on the bed when I put her on it. I have not seen anymore blood and her breathing seems normal. I have not tried to feed her yet, and given the time of year, I wouldn't be surprised if she refuses food, anyway, since the unusual warm spell that brought her out in the first place has ended and it's now gotten quite cold again, plus I keep it rather cool in my room during the winter so my Colubrids can brumate. I am going to offer her a f/t mouse tomorrow, though, to see if she takes it, and put her on a heat pad just long enough to see if she can digest it without regurging. If she can, then that will put my concerns about her recovery pretty much at ease, since I've never known a badly injured snake to be able to hold down food, assuming it will eat at all. If they will eat and can digest their food, they are on their way to a full recovery.

And Snark, yes, I hope the Krait you found will recover as well, especially since he's been around a long time. Snakes are remarkably resilient creatures, and indeed if they weren't, I'm afraid that we would have wiped them all off the planet a long time ago. There's no telling how many snakes have been shot, bludgeoned, stabbed, chopped, etc. by ignorant people and have managed to somehow escape and recover and survive. I've found numerous wild snakes with scars that could only have been caused by man-made objects and were inconsistent with animal bites or other natural injuries, plus many who had been shot, whose shotgun pellets or bullet fragments showed up clearly on x-rays. They are some tough creatures to be sure.

pitbulllady
 

Tarantel

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
329
What idiot would shoot a snake? Spiders at least are venomous but snakes?
 

pitbulllady

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
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Messages
2,290
What idiot would shoot a snake? Spiders at least are venomous but snakes?
I don't understand the hatred against snakes myself, not in light of the amount of knowledge that is out there, for the taking, as opposed to relying on Medieval attitudes. There ARE dangerously venomous snakes, though, including five species where I live, three of which have real potential to kill you if you cannot get to reliable medical help ASAP. Even still, human deaths are very rare in the US due to snake envenomation, and most venomous bites actually occur when someone is trying to kill or pick up the snake, asking for it, basically. When you compare the attitude of the general public towards snakes with that towards large mammalian carnivores, like wolves or cougars or bears, all of which do have the potential to kill humans and some of which actually have, it does not make sense. Let someone kill a bear that shows up in their yard, and that person will be crucified in the media, even if that bear actually was threatening the person's safety or that of his pets, children, etc. Let someone kill a snake in their yard, though, and they will be a "hero", even if it is a non-venomous snake incapable of harming anyone. The fear-based hatred of snakes is far, far out of proportion to the actual threat they pose. I can tell you absolute horror stories of things that people do to snakes, things they would never, ever consider doing to any other animal. Many people simply don't even see snakes as animals, period, but to those people, snakes are some sort of quasi-supernatural things, all due to a mistranslation of an ancient Hebrew word, a word for which there is no equivalent in Greek, Latin, or English.

pitbulllady
 

Tarantel

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
329
I don't understand the hatred against snakes myself, not in light of the amount of knowledge that is out there, for the taking, as opposed to relying on Medieval attitudes. There ARE dangerously venomous snakes, though, including five species where I live, three of which have real potential to kill you if you cannot get to reliable medical help ASAP. Even still, human deaths are very rare in the US due to snake envenomation, and most venomous bites actually occur when someone is trying to kill or pick up the snake, asking for it, basically. When you compare the attitude of the general public towards snakes with that towards large mammalian carnivores, like wolves or cougars or bears, all of which do have the potential to kill humans and some of which actually have, it does not make sense. Let someone kill a bear that shows up in their yard, and that person will be crucified in the media, even if that bear actually was threatening the person's safety or that of his pets, children, etc. Let someone kill a snake in their yard, though, and they will be a "hero", even if it is a non-venomous snake incapable of harming anyone. The fear-based hatred of snakes is far, far out of proportion to the actual threat they pose. I can tell you absolute horror stories of things that people do to snakes, things they would never, ever consider doing to any other animal. Many people simply don't even see snakes as animals, period, but to those people, snakes are some sort of quasi-supernatural things, all due to a mistranslation of an ancient Hebrew word, a word for which there is no equivalent in Greek, Latin, or English.

pitbulllady
Well said. The same sort of prejudice exists towards animals like spiders or centipedes. I've seen many internet videos of people feeding their pet tarantula/centipede rodents and the comments are always something stupid like "eww i would keep the mouse as a pet and squish that insect thing". :mad:
 

The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
Old Timer
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Aug 8, 2005
Messages
11,044
PBL. More fingers crossed. Give us some regular updates? When will normal hibernation start, or will it in your environment? I'm thinking the animal could stand a better chance of recovery by a few months asleep.

I would like to take every snake-aphobic person and make them walk through the python house up at the snake farm. There are about 25 pythons in a cage with an 8 foot ceiling, about 8 feet across and maybe 30 feet long. Open beam rafters and tree branches everywhere that you have to thread your way through. The whole idea is, if you just walk, amble, shuffle, stomp, stroll etc. and you WILL GET MUNCHED. A LOT! You will look like you are a walking python display by the time you exit. Or you go Zen, walk slowly and keep your mind a blank. I've gone through that cage maybe 20 times and never so much as a nibble. Snakes know. Sense things. They are absolutely amazing animals if you slow down and try to empathize at their speed.

So shove the clowns in a place like that, telling them, just do NOT think about all those snakes you've maimed and killed and you'll be fine! :laugh:
 
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