Our first wildlife encounter after we headed down the trail at Huntington Beach State Park to the lagoons was to see this snake across the concrete pathway. We thought it was dead, but I hoped it wasn't. Thinking it was a garter snake I readily approached to talk to it. Surely my voice would bring it back to life, right?
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| © 2011 Donna L. Watkins - Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata) - Huntington Beach State Park - Murrells Inlet, SC |
He then decided he'd feel a whole lot better in the woods and headed that way. They are large constricting snakes, although not venomous, but if handled carelessly might bite. They very much like to climb in trees.
Yellow Rat Snakes are found in the coastal areas of South Carolina with the adult size being in the range of 42 to 72 inches. This snake was about 42 inches, so a young and thin adult.
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| © 2011 Donna L. Watkins - Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata) - Huntington Beach State Park - Murrells Inlet, SC |
Rat snakes are relatively slow moving snakes and will most often freeze when encountering danger. This is why many of them are killed on our roads and highways. While freezing they often take a rippled posture, looking like a large crinkled ribbon. That's exactly what he was doing when we first saw him.
This was a first sighting of this snake for me so I was very excited to have it identified as a new experience when I got back home. Here in Central Virginia our property has Black Rat Snakes so I felt like I'd met a cousin. The Yellow Rat Snake is known to interbreed with Black Rat Snakes which are also found in South Carolina.
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