TURQUOISE Striped Snake - no kidding

Ok, I'm NOT kidding. I stepped out the front door and saw a small snake. As I scrutinized him for later ID, I realized that he was striped brownish tan and blue-green. I kept staring at him because I just could not believe my eyes. I had never heard of a turquoise striped snake. If such a creature existed I would have expected it to live in a more exotic locale. By the time I got the camera he was on his way out of the area, but I did get a few pics of his body/tail. In real life the blue-green was brighter. He was really a pretty color.

I did some searching on line and found that some variations of the Eastern Garter Snake are known to have a turquoise stripe (and are found in my area). Apparently their is also a Blue Striped Peninsula Ribbon Snake in my area and blue striped Ribbon Snake. I decided this must be the garter snake, however, because the literature indicates that the garter snake has those darker spots on the brown stripes.

The only other pic I got before he disappeared.

BTW, when I ran in to grab the camera, the lens cover became all fogged up due to the high humidity. It took a few minutes to get it to clear up. That's how I lost the snake.

scutler, really cool! (hate snakes, love pictures of snakes)

Thanks, Gram.

Honestly, I'm not too very fond of snakes myself, but i found myself amazed by the color of this one. The photo didn't capture it very well. It had a touch more green and was brighter. I just couldn't believe it.

What's next? Bears? You have incredible wildlife in your yard for it to be fenced. Beautiful snake.

Debra

Thanks, Debra. It was an incredibly beautiful snake - and I'm not that fond of snakes! Still I found myself mesmerized by the stunning color. I read that some "experts" think that this coloring may be the result of a cross between the Eastern Garter Snake and the Black Rat Snake. Oh, and this fella was at the front door. Only the back yard is fenced (and that's where most of the critters are.lol) I have small wax myrtle trees and crepe myrtle trees around the front door. Birds love to nest in those trees, and snakes hand out waiting for the mom to leave so they can grab the eggs.

I say it again. I is a zoo here.

Neat snake. I like snakes. We live in the middle of the woods and have a lot of them around and about. The only ones we would kill are the copper heads, rattlers or cottonmouths. Have never seen one of them around here because we have a lot of black snakes and they will kill other snakes that come into their territory. Found a black snake skin in our attic that was about 5'. Have one that lives under our house and I figure he has gotten up thru the siding. Probably after mice or hibernating. Hope he doesn't get caught in the traps we have set out. Maybe you will get lucky and see it again. Liz

wow, scutler...beautiful snake! And one of my favorite colors too... :) Thanks for sharing.. :)

Hi scutler,

Sorry I'm replying months after the fact, but I just found this post now. I'd vote for a variation of the Eastern Garter snake. I had a Florida Garter snake as a pet, when I was a kid, and it's whole belly was aqua/turquoise. Beautiful. It's why I bought the snake, actually. That, and for the fact that it ate fish and not mice, lol. I only have a couple, low quality pix of my snake. If I can *find* them, I'll scan them and send them to you. Stripe (that was my snake's name) didn't have the aqua up on his sides like that, but it might be a slightly different kind of Garter snake. Hope this helps.

~Kristy (yeah, I'm a girl and I had a pet snake. Can you say "tomboy," lol!)

Hi Scutler, what a neat snake! We're lucky to see any garter, but I'd love to have a turquoise one!

Hey scutler and others. I found the pix of my old pet snake. They're not all that great, but I do think it's the same type scutler saw. It does look like the aqua goes up on the sides a little. Pretty cool! Hope this helps. My snake's name was Stripe, cause he had a stripe down his back, like the one in scutler's pix. Here are my 3 pix...


This message was edited Mar 15, 2007 2:33 PM

And another. You can see the aqua on the sides in this one...

Last one.

~Kristy

Very pretty Irislover! I have never seen or heard of one before, till Scutler started this, and you had one for a pet. Cool! I love wildlife.

Here is a link with a number of good photos of the blue stripe garter snake:

http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/jd/jdweb/Herps/species/USsnakes/thasirsim.htm

Thanks, everyone, for all the compliments and comments! Thanks, Kristy, for posting pics of your snake. When I posted this I thought people might think I was joking. Thanks for backing me up on the existance of such a snake.

I value my snakes, especially the non-poisonous ones. The do good things (like kill rats), and have an important place in the ecosystem. To be honest, though, I still have to fight back my fear at the sight of anything that slivers about on the ground. But I could not get enough of looking at this incredible snake that day. He was in the flower bed just outside my front door. Perhaps the sun was hitting him just right that day to bring out the lovely aqua color, but he was beautiful.

As I had never seen or heard of a this coloration, I did not even id it as a garter snake at 1st. At that point I couldn't even be sure he wasn't some exotic x-pet that might be highly toxic. When I came inside and checked the net in search of info on such a snake I found info on what was called a turquoise garter in FL with some indications that it might also be here is SC.

I just did another search and found this interesting link regarding a CA aqua garter: http://www.montereybay.com/creagrus/CAsnakeSFGarter.html
The aqua coloration shown on the snake in the 1st photo at that link is very close to what I saw. Interesting note, the brown stripes on the back/side of my snake had a reddish brown appearance which did not show in my photos - although not anywhere near as bright as that in the photo of the CA snake. Mine was a muted reddish brown, not the bright orange of the CA snake. The combination of reddish brown with the aqua was quite stunning. (Snake owners moving from one coast to the other could introduce such coloration into our native species I would think.)

Here is an audubon link for a Bluestripe garter: http://www.corkscrew.audubon.org/Wildlife/Snakes.html#Bluestripe%20Garter

They really do exist. I've seen one with my own eyes. I sure hope mine is still living in my front yard!

Yer welcome, guys. Even though my pix weren't that great, I was glad to back scutler up, hehe. Upon looking at the pix in your links, I think my guy was a Bluestripe Garter or Eastern Garter (though he was sold as a "Florida Garter." Later!

~Kristy

This message was edited Mar 30, 2007 10:47 AM

Kristy,

I am very glad that you were there to back me up on this. Even when I was looking at the "blue" snake, I felt like I just had to get a photo because no one would ever believe me - that and, since I'd never heard of a "blue" striped snake, I needed "documentation" so I could determine if it was some kind of highly poisonous, exotic pet that had gotten away from its owner and taken up residence in my flower bed.

Lol, yeah, color is usually a warning, isn't it? But bad things are usually red, orange, or yellow, aren't they?

Stripe, my snake, was really pathetic, lol. My dad and I were very disillusioned with the animal kingdom because of him. We used to watch these nature shows when I was a kid (well, we still do), that talked about what great hunters snakes were and how they could sense body heat and everything. We thought that was true until we got Stripe. He only ate fish, but the fish had to practically commit suicide and crawl into his mouth, for him to eat, ha! We'd put the fish in that pie plate, you see in the pix. And he'd swim around like a spazz, with his mouth open. But it would take him forever to get one. He wasn't looking for them, it was just by chance in one got in his mouth. Sometimes they'd flip out of the plate and onto the astroturf. He's get out and be looking for it, while it was flopping and hitting him in the head. And he STILL couldn't find it! It was like, "I know it's over here somewhere... [whack!] What was that?! [whack] There it was again! Where is that wiley fish?" It was really quite sad and pathetic, lol. One day, my dad had enough. I was out and he let Stripe go. I was mad, because he was a Florida garter and probably didn't survive our winter. But, it was a really dumb snake, LOL! Maybe something was wrong with its eyes, I don't know.

Stripe also escaped once and my mom was ready to check into a hotel, LOL! He wasn't missing long, though. I saw his head peeking out from under the closet door. I went to grab him and he coiled his body back and jumped away from me! Just like the snake on Q-Bert! I remember I stopped, stunned, and said, "Snakes can JUMP?!" LOL! He got a deep cut somehow and we took him to the vet and got him stitched up. Poor thing, lol.

Now I know that it's not survival of the fittest, it's actually survival of the luckiest. I think that's why many animals have so many offspring at one time, LOL! ;P

~Kristy

Kristy, FOTFLOL at your most hilarious description of Stripe stalking his prey!!!

I always enjoy observing the behavior of wildlife. How often the reality differs from our perceptions.

Thanks for a great chuckle!

OMG! It has taken me a while to be able see to type from laughing so hard after reading your description of the poor mentally challenged Stripe and the fish. Thank you for sharing with us.

Kristy, I'm weak with laughter over Stripe too. Survival of the luckiest. That is sadly funny:))

LOL! Well, I'm glad you guys enjoyed it! It was so pathetic. I should've video taped it, lol. That poor thing. That's why I know he didn't survive. Forget the winter, he'd have to meet some suicidal fish to be able to stay alive, LOL! ;P Poor thing, lol.

~Kristy... my slider turtle, Speedy, that I have now, is kinda dumb, too. We mostly feed him pellets and he goes crazy when he sees the bottle. But, he's so focused on the bottle that he doesn't realize when the pellets are floating all around his head. He just keeps swimming and splashing the water like a spazz, like he's trying to climb out of the tank, and the pellets are floating right in front of his mouth. Sigh. We have to walk away so he'll actually look in the water for his food, lol. Guess we don't have that much luck with reptiles, lol. ;P

Hand over mouth muffling laughter in case Speedy can hear me :o)~

LOL! I really should video tape it and put it on YouTube, lol.

~Kristy

Pic of Speedy

He's a nice looking turtle and he's waving hello to us :)) Our sliders don't have the red mark. Apparently he gets enough to eat in spite of it all.

LOL! Yep, he's a glutton. He's obese. How can you tell if a turtle is fat, you may ask? When he tries to pull his head or limbs into his shell - and can't - because fat starts poking out, instead, LOL! ;P

~Kristy

Kristy, I think that you should consider a career in writing. Your descriptions of you hunting challenged snake and you puggie turtle are hilarious - and quite adorable!

Laughing, luckily he has no predators. I agree, you do have a way of describing events!

Thanks scutler! That actually *is* what I want to do. My dream career is to be an author of non-fiction and fiction books. I had an article published in a couple local newspapers, last year. I was also quoted in another article in that same paper. And I wrote another, in-depth piece about feather-plucking, where I interviewed many parrot experts (including Liz Wilson from Bird Talk). That one didn't get published, but, then again, I didn't try that hard to get it published. I'm actually trying to find a job right now. But, since most writers can't make a living off their writing, I'm looking for one I can support myself with. I love digital art and design, too, so I've been looking for web designer, graphic designer, and secretarial jobs. So, the call is out, everyone! If anyone knows of an entry-level position that deals with writing or digital art (in the Chicago area), PLEASE let me know, lol! ;D

~Kristy

billyporter, you posted while I was writing the above. Thanks to you, too. Glad I could make y'all laugh, hehe.

~Kristy

Good luck! That is a cool dream career!

Hey, Kristy, you might be able to find some freelance stuff through http://www.guru.com - it's a good, legit site.

The snakes are so cool - I never knew garter snakes could have such color. Beautiful! And I laughed at your poor snake's ineptitude, Kristy!

Thanks, billyporter and gardenwife. I'll have to check that site out. I dug out the article I wrote on parrots. Maybe I'll try getting it published! =D

Here's my African Grey parrot, MJ. He's my Fatboy! I also have a black-masked lovebird named Nosey. My only pets now are those two and Speedy. But I used to have a menagerie of animals when I was younger, lol.

~Kristy... ooops, I didn't mean to hijack your thread, scutler!

This message was edited Apr 4, 2007 2:46 AM

Hi, Kristy
No problem! [per Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, Mike Myers, SNL] "I'm a little verklempt [about that poor, challenged snake]! Talk amongst yourselves..."

Not to worry, Kristy, I believe this threads was pretty much "on mothballs" when you revived it recently, anyway. :-)

Edited to add emoticon.




This message was edited Apr 6, 2007 9:41 AM