Colorado Snake ID (1 Viewer)

[JDV]

What kind is this? Is it some type of immature Garter?

 

[Farnboro John]

You pick up snakes without knowing what they are???

John

 

[KenM]

Garter snakes produce a neuro toxic venom which can’t kill humans as far as I’m aware?
Presume the OP was (local) and aware of that and as such, was perhaps a touch more cavalier than he might have been compared to say a “foreigner”😮

 

[Allen]

On the basis that the OP is asking what it is I'm assuming he doesn't. Maybe was just deciding to spice up a boring day 😆

 

[Hotspur]

It's a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake, one of four species of Garter Snake in Colorado (and the blandest looking). In terms of dangerously venomous snakes, there are a bunch of rattlesnakes and that's about it, so if it's not one of those, you're golden.

 

[JDV]

You pick up snakes without knowing what they are???

John

Well, I know North American snakes well enough to know what’s venomous and what’s not. Rattlers, copperheads, coral and Moccasins are all we have that are venomous and I can ID them on sight. I just don’t know all the subspecies of the non-venomous.

 

[dantheman]

Kind of unrelated but I was reminded of it when talking to relatives just the other day ... I had 2 pet Garter Snakes when I was a teenager (possibly different species/subspecies as one ate fish and one ate worms iirc), and took them into my little brothers infant class one day to show the small children and encourage them to not be afraid of snakes. Of the c30 kids in the class all of them touched/held/stroked the snakes, except of course my own little brother and his best friend ... ironically.