Rare Indigo Black Snake

[Guardian]

Rare Indigo Black Snake

As I was coming up my driveway today, I saw a black snake stretched across the road. She was about 7 to 8 feet long, and I'm fairly certain she was a rare Indigo Black snake, mainly due to her length in relationship to her diameter.

She wasn't at all happy with me as I chased her out of the driveway, back into the woods. She flattened her neck and hissed at me (which is what the Indigo does too) but when I kept annoying her, she finally allowed herself to be herded into the brush.

I could practically hear her cussing me, but she was basking on a curve so if I'd left her there someone coming down the drive wouldn't have been able to miss her, and there's a few folks here who wouldn't even have tried.

 

[Lisa Guliani]

Indigo snakes seem to be found in Florida and southeastern Georgia, according to what I've read.
http://www.oriannesociety.org/eastern-indigo-snake ( See the last section on Distribution.)

"The current strongholds for the species are peninsular Florida and southeastern Georgia. Eastern Indigo snakes are rare and of very local occurrence in the Florida Panhandle (west of Tallahassee) and in southwestern Georgia."

and "The historic range included southeastern Mississippi, southernmost Alabama, and possibly southeastern South Carolina; however, eastern Indigo snakes no longer inhabit these states."

This snake on your property may more likely be a much more common rat or racer snake, both of which are found extensively and more commonly in Western North Carolina.

Looks like this one to me: The Rat snake, which is not rare at all in this neck of the woods.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/gaston/Pests/reptiles/pages/rat.htm

"Rat snakes feed on rats, mice, birds, and other reptiles. The young snakes are patterned and frequently find their way into buildings. These juvenile snakes are frequently misidentified as copperheads, to which they bear only a slight resemblance. Note the juvenile pictures beneath the adult pictures. Rat Snakes vary greatly in color in different areas of North Carolina, but the two most common adult colors are black with a spotted gray and white belly, and greenish-yellow with four brown or black stripes the length of its body. More rare colors include an irridescent (reflects light) black that looks blue, and gray and black spotted. "

 

[Guardian]

Indigo snakes seem to be found in Florida and southeastern Georgia, according to what I've read.
http://www.oriannesociety.org/eastern-indigo-snake ( See the last section on Distribution.)

Actually, they've been found in this part of North Carolina on and off for years (we're only about 40 miles from Georgia) but they are rare to see up here.

http://www.lafayette.in.gov/egov/docs/699921312307803.htm
"The eastern indigo snake is primarily found throughout Florida and some small southern parts of Georgia and Alabama. Historically, this species has been found as far north as North Carolina but because of the impacts of habitat destruction, their range has been restricted to the far south."

I wasn't sure what she was either, and like you said they do look an awful lot like racers, which are very common, but I've seen a LOT of rats and racers over the years, and this one was very different.

She was very long, there was no speckling, she had the tan/reddish stripe on her face and that glossy sheen that even shows up in the photo. Of course she could have just shed, but that didn't explain how long she was. I was talking about it with a friend on Facebook and because Indigo's are so rare, I decided to take the photos to the Ranger station at the park entrance. Both Rangers present told me it looked like an Indigo, AND that they have been seeing a lot more of them up here in the past two or three years....which is why I thought it was very interesting.

We now have spiders AND snakes that usually range much further south moving up here. So what do they know that we don't?

 

[Esoterica]

Seems to be an awful lot of snakes coming out of the woodwork here in the UK as well.

Maybe symbolic of the psychos attempt to take the UK to war being thwarted by the 'will of parliament', even if it was blatant opportunist politics on behalf of the opposition party!

Just a thought ;)

http://www.sott.net/article/265729-Escaped-snake-spotted-outside-home-in-Watford-UK
http://www.sott.net/article/264718-Large-snake-discovered-in-Leicester-garden-pond-UK
http://www.sott.net/article/265762-UK-Pensioner-shocked-to-find-4ft-king-snake-under-a-table-in-her-garden
http://www.sott.net/article/265730-Shock-as-large-snake-pops-out-of-drain-in-Cleethorpes-UK

 

[Guardian]

Seems to be an awful lot of snakes coming out of the woodwork here in the UK as well.

I've been noticing a lot of snake stories recently too. The Rangers said the Indigos are moving in up here because of our HUGE gopher population. Evidently they eat (or scare away?) the gophers and steal their holes.

We do have a ton of gophers, you can't drive down the road without seeing one pop up, but I still think there might be more to it than that. The Rangers also said that pythons and boas are moving north at about a mile a day...although how they measure that I have no idea?

 

[Lan8r]

Here in Central Florida Indigos are common. And for some reason protected. Black Racers are everywhere. As are rat snakes, unfortunately due to the fact that rats are too!! The ones that really freak me out are the pygmy rattlers. Sneaky little devils. And of course in the swamp areas there are the water moccasins. The cotton mouth moccasins are very bold.

Most of the black snakes you would see around here are racers. They seem to love the frogs and lizards. They can be very quick, but will put up a good show when confronted. I've had several try to move into my house, which is why I keep a broom handy!

 

[Ben]

If you have any closer pictures of the head I can tell you if it is Drymarchon (Indigos, cribos etc.) or not

 

[Guardian]

If you have any closer pictures of the head I can tell you if it is Drymarchon (Indigos, cribos etc.) or not

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, just my phone. The originals are at a higher resolution, but I don't have any closer shots of the head...mainly because it flattened its neck and hissed at me, which you can kinda see in one picture. That's actually what got me wondering what it was. I've only seen hognose snakes do that before. I spent most of my life living in a swamp, and I've seen a LOT of black snakes, but I've never seen one go all cobra-like before. I've seen a hognose do it, more than once, but never a black snake.

 

[Tracy Anne]

Seems to be an awful lot of snakes coming out of the woodwork here in the UK as well.

Maybe symbolic of the psychos attempt to take the UK to war being thwarted by the 'will of parliament', even if it was blatant opportunist politics on behalf of the opposition party!

Just a thought ;)

http://www.sott.net/article/265729-Escaped-snake-spotted-outside-home-in-Watford-UK
http://www.sott.net/article/264718-Large-snake-discovered-in-Leicester-garden-pond-UK
http://www.sott.net/article/265762-UK-Pensioner-shocked-to-find-4ft-king-snake-under-a-table-in-her-garden
http://www.sott.net/article/265730-Shock-as-large-snake-pops-out-of-drain-in-Cleethorpes-UK

Hi Esoterica

I too have wondered about the sudden appearance of snakes in the UK especially the one in Watford which was too close to home for me! There has been alot of exposing by the media here recently of celebrity predators and I wondered if the snakes were symbolic of others, not caught yet, but trying to escape.

Maybe other Fourm members have wondered the same?

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