I Saw a Coral Snake this Morning (Austin, Charlotte: house, school)

[redvelvet709]

We shot one last year that had tons of tiny babies on its' back. They were promptly stomped.

[G Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by SickOfCalifornia

Coral snakes have a mouth roughly the size of an eraser at the end of a pencil. They also do not "strike" like rattlesnakes. To get bitten by one, you would have to be extremely negligent. In fact, almost all the known cases of coral snake bites involve the person who was bitten handling the snake, and even then usually after holding the snake for a long period of time. Coral snakes do not stand their ground and flee when disturbed. Perhaps the only real danger of being bitten by one would be if you were to sit on one... and even then, there is no way their miniscule teeth or mouth could bite through clothing. As long as you don't ever pick one up, I would say that they pose no real danger to you.

I agree with this completely. I did not feel in any danger at all. I know that coral snakes have to "chew" in order to invenomate, are very shy, and will not "jump" at you. That's why I felt safe in watching it from a few feet away as it made its escape. It was beautiful. I did have a shovel near by, but there is no way I would have killed it; they have their place in nature. I believe in understanding and respecting snakes rather than killing them (unless they are a direct threat, which this one was not.) We don't walk out in back when its dark and we can't see the ground (no taking out the trash after dark), I'm working on clearing the brush away from the area on the other side of the fence, as far as we know, we have no rodent problem. And we try to behave intelligently when we do see snakes. That's all we can do to minimize any threat, which I believe is already quite low compared to the threats of everyday living.

[TexasHorseLady]

Exactly. They want to get away from you even more than you want to get away from them. Their mouths are so tiny that they have to chew on you in order to inject venom, not bite.

[Idlewile]

They sure are beautiful snakes.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by janejanejanejanejane

it's those snakes that need to die.... too bad you did not take a shovel to it.

I disagree. They really are not much threat to people, and they were here long before humans were.

Originally Posted by janejanejanejanejane

iWhile they get a good bite in so rarely, if you do get a good bite, say your goodbyes. No anti-venom to be found.

Well, to tell the rest of the story... the reason you can't get an anti-venom today is that they stopped making it because it was expensive to make and there was so little call for it. There are about a dozen cases of Texas coral-snake bites reported a year, none of them fatal in over 40 years.

[RomeandJill]

Originally Posted by redvelvet709

We shot one last year that had tons of tiny babies on its' back. They were promptly stomped.

This statement is RIDICULOUS.... Snakes don't carry their babies on their back.
Texas Coral snakes lay eggs at which time the female leaves and never sees them again.

Any one who goes out of their way to kill a snake is only exhibiting their lack of compassion for life.
And truth be told, Coral snakes actually prey largely on OTHER SNAKES feeding on the ocassional lizard they can manage to catch as well.
So by indiscriminately killing these beautiful serpents you are actually removing a highly efficient serpent predator from the environment.

Through out history humans have always killed or destroyed that or those which we don't understand. How well has that worked out ?

[G Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by redvelvet709

We shot one last year that had tons of tiny babies on its' back. They were promptly stomped.

I am wondering if coral snakes engage in mating balls as garter snakes do. I haven't been able to see any reference to coral snakes doing this, but I'm wondering if this person thought he was seeing babies on the mother's back, when he was seeing a mating ball with the smaller males on board. Maybe the person didn't actually see a coral snake. Does anyone have a thought about this? RomeandJill?

[RomeandJill]

Originally Posted by G Grasshopper

I am wondering if coral snakes engage in mating balls as garter snakes do. I haven't been able to see any reference to coral snakes doing this, but I'm wondering if this person thought he was seeing babies on the mother's back, when he was seeing a mating ball with the smaller males on board. Maybe the person didn't actually see a coral snake. Does anyone have a thought about this? RomeandJill?

Hello there !
Actually Texas Corals do not engage in the mass breeding antics of garters. When elapids (corals, cobras...etc) are bred in captivity is it usually with single males bred to singularly housed females. Corals can be tricky due to their snake eating tendencies.
At first I thought they were talking about a scorpion as they will carry their babies on their backs but this is either an absured statement our an outright lie.

[JimBaker488]

Originally Posted by OpenD

and they were here long before humans were.

So, and what's that got to do with anything ?

[Pammyd]

Originally Posted by G Grasshopper

I was working in my back yard this morning, enlarging the grassless area around a tree so that I could mulch it, when I saw a small, beautiful snake on the other side of the tree from me. It was smaller than the diameter of a pencil, so a young one. It was obviously intimidated by me, turned around, and made for the fence, the other side of which is greenbelt. Before it slithered under the fence, I kept saying "Red next to yellow, kill a fellow; red next to black, its alright Jack," but this baby was definitely red next to yellow. It was NOT an aggressive snake; it wanted to get away!

Ewwww a snake is a snake is a snake. Don't like any of them. We live on the East Coast in CT and our biggest dangers snakewise here are copperheads normally found in rocky areas and wood rattlers which are rare but are found here. We do have garter snakes (grass snakes) too. Don't like any of them. I am not sure I could live in an area where there are poisonous snakes like Texas has..that pay you visits to your yard etc. I have a friend who lives in Florida and says that they have to put up a special fence to keep the gators out of their yard..imagine that!