Scary!! A few minutes agon my hubby called me to the hallway and there was a snake! I don't know HOW it got in the house as everything was closed up and we don't live near woods or anything. Earlier today we did have the patio door open and in fact hubby was laying out his hunting tent....he never saw anything and worked on the tent for quite awhile...hmmmmmm
I have tried to find a snake that looks like this in my snake book and on the internet but nothing looks familiar except maybe a Missauga? We see snakes in the gardne now and then but they are just garters and this was no garter snake - same colors pretty much but marked with rings/spots and not long stripes.
It was about 10-12" long, small diameter about like a woman's pinky finger. It was vividly marked in dark and light - maybe black or brownish/maroon and a cream to yellow. The marking were small but numerous and distinct - sort of like a series of small bands like a ringtail though some may have been splotchy. It reminds me of a rattlesnake though very small - and I don't think we have many rattlers in western Ohio much, if at all.
This snake was also VERY fast moving as we tried to catch it. At one point it was cupled up behind a cabinet and picked it's head up a couple inches like a cobra would. Kitty Robbie stuck his nose into the crack behind the cabinet and the snake STRUCK fast and hard at him. I am not sure it bit him but I don't think so - Robbie jumped backwards and away and seems fine though the snake actually struck him :(
Do any of you know what kind of snake this could have been?? Does it sound familiar?? Do all snakes coil, raise and strike if they feel cornered?
edit: I think I found the ID - an eastern milk snake looks like what we had. Nonvenomous but does strike. Poor Robbie!! Scared him - he is still jumpy. It also looks like a fox snake but thinner. So, guessing we had a baby or young eastern milk snake :cool: Hubby had just brought the tent in to the patio room to take it down and it had been in the yard all afternoon.
