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Young black snake

safire6

safire6

New member
A guy at work caught a young black snake today. At least I think it's a young black snake. I'll post pics of it in a couple days. Its about 8" long. I'm considering keeping it as a pet. (I have a 5 year old corn too.) Question-do black snakes require belly heat like corns or overhead heat from a lamp? I haven't had any time yet to do any research on care of black snakes. Thanks.
 
a "Black Snake" is really either a Rat Snake or a King Snake. Either way, it's just another cousin to the Corn Snake. You would care for it the same way.
 
The most common snakes in the SW Ohio area I've seen referred to as "black snakes" are typically eastern rats, watersnakes (often mistaken for cottonmouth), and northern black racers. There is also the eastern black kingsnake or the occasional melanistic garter, but those are not very common. I'm betting it's probably an eastern rat.
 
Most of the (large) snakes mentioned here, definitely Elaphe sp. and Coluber sp....at 8 inches...would be juveniles, and thereby quite crisply patterned and "un-black".

Small does not definitively mean young.
Some snakes are both small and mature.
 
Ohio has strict regulations about keeping native snakes- you should probably check into that.
 
I can't think of a naive species that is solid black at 8" long that doesn't have some other distinguishing mark or coloration. Most folks here are familiar with baby black rats, hence my assumption of eastern rat. I could well be wrong.
 
I had a juvenile "black snake" many years ago as a kid and this one is patterned just like that one was. Now as I compare it to photos taken from reputable websites, I agree with Dragonling-it is a juvi eastern black rat snake.

I was unaware about keeping wild native snakes-thanks for the information Nancy.

I'll try my hand at posting a pic.

thanks,

Steve
 
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