The colorful snake pictured above is a Scarlet King Snake, sometimes known as a Mexican Milk Snake. Actually, those are two different species, but they look so much alike (and there is so much in-species variation) that they probably couldn’t tell themselves apart.
If it matters to you at all, although it resembles a Coral Snake, King Snakes are non-poisonous. Remember the rhyme –
Red and yellow kill a fellow
Red and black, venom lack
Of course, if you ask my wife, all snakes (even snakes on TV) are an abomination. They are the devil’s spawn, and must be eradicated. Any snake at all will cause her to suffer a paralyzing panic attack.
Unusual for this time of year, but several days of warm weather brought one out in our back yard on Tuesday.
Tinker, our black-and-tan dachshund, saw it first and was barking at it while staying just out of reach. Since King Snakes are essentially harmless, living on a diet consisting mostly of lizards and frogs, I decided to give it a break. I picked it up and threw it about 40 feet over the back fence.
Everything would have been fine if the story ended there, but the darn serpent couldn’t leave well enough alone. About an hour later, Tinker was barking again – the stupid snake was right back where I had picked him up the first time, and this time Honey saw him.
That sealed his fate.
I decapitated the snake with a shovel and threw his remains on the glowing coals where I was burning fallen limbs. It’s amazing how fast even a headless snake can wriggle out of a fire. The next time, I was careful to place him between a couple burning logs, and he did not make it out again.
I’ve said that King Snakes are harmless and non-poisonous, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t bite; they are actually quite aggressive. When I picked him up the first time, he grabbed onto my shoe lace and I wasn’t sure I was going to get him loose.
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