Today's Nature Find

sustainablyyours (65)in #nature • 7 years ago

The weather today was beautiful, and I couldn't resist getting outside during my lunch break. As I walked along the boundary between the cared-for school lawn and the wild, overgrown nature area, I heard something in the grass just ahead of me. I glanced up just in time to see the tail of a reptile slithering under the kudzu debris for cover. It wasn't any threat to me, so I just continued along my way. There wasn't much out to take pictures of, so the hike went rather quickly.

On the way back, you would think I would have been bit more watchful as I approached the area where I had seen the snake. Nope! I had totally forgotten about it. So, when I saw a snake's tail intertwined in the weeds no more than 2 yards away from me, I jumped. I mean I literally jumped up into the air. Admittedly, it wasn't one of my proudest moments. But, the snake didn't budge! I froze and watched to see what it would do. It did nothing. Then I began to notice how ghostly the skin looked, and it dawned on me.

It was just a snake skin!

A rather large snake skin! And, it was completely in tact! I had never found a snake skin that still had the head attached, but this one did.

It Has A Head!

I measured the skin by stretching a string along its length and used a ruler to measure the string. It came out to 1.16 meters (right at 5 ft) long!

Now, I'm not very good with reptile identification; however, if I had to venture a guess, I'd say this was probably a rat snake (known in these parts as a chicken snake). There aren't many snakes in this area that grow to the length of this skin, and the skin appears to be a fairly solid color without any markings to speak of.

Close-Up

* All photos taken by me using Canon Rebel T3; Lens Model: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II unless otherwise credited. Macro shots were taken using a cheap screw on macro adapter; post processing performed using Darktable unless otherwise labeled.

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