What snake did I find?? Don't think it was native!

[king2005]

I was cottaging with 9 friends on Little Lake, in Muskoka(close to the town of Bala), Ontario, Canada. We all went to our rock island for fishing & swimming, when Steph yelled SANKE!! Some one catch it! All the guys backed off & I said OOOO where?!?! & what colour is its belly? They said white, so I thought rat or redbelly snake.. I know there are some redbelly snakes with an orange or white belly in Ontario... Then I saw the snake & was totally puzzled by it. SO I said, oh it must be a rat snake, as thats not a redbelly.


The snake stopped & started to watch us (ya that was CREEPY)... I was behind the snake & Steph was infront of it.. I told her to gently pleash water at its head to keep its attention on her & NOT me.. I managed to catch it by the butt & lifted it out of the water... It looked like it was going to strike & I thought it was best to drop it in the water, as it was fairly fast moving... I hate snake bites & I was very puzzled as to what it was & wasn't in the mood to find out it was venumous & I was gonna die in the middle of nowhere on a stupid rock.

So now I want to know what on earth I picked up.. I'm use to there being only a couple kinds of snakes where I lived in Ottawa (Garder, rat & redbelly)... I totally forgot about the Mississauga rattlesnake & feel really dumb for touching that snake..


So heres the discription of the snake(the best I can give)..

-Diamonds on its back
-Brown & black in colour on its back
-greyish colour belly
-dark head (looked black to me)
-thin tail came to a point
-about 2' in body length
-about an inch in diameter in the middle of the snake(maybe thicker)... it looked beefy, not twig like
-Defently NOT fearful
-swims above & below water
-doesn't seem to swim under very long nor very fast.. but it can move fast (when I was holding it)


I have a couple head shots of the snake that I can get later this week, as its not on my camera.. but the preview on Joe's lappytop, doesn't show much.. I'm just hoping I can blow up the head if the photo is high res. ... otherwise there are no photos of the critter

Here is a website of the snakes in my area, but non seem to look like it
Clicky

[Suki Wingy]

I have no idea.

[Karen]

Northern Water Snake - the picture on the site you linked to doesn't look like other pictures of them I have seen - check the Google image search results, and wikipedia results, and you'll get a better idea.

[king2005]

Northern Water Snake - the picture on the site you linked to doesn't look like other pictures of them I have seen - check the Google image search results, and wikipedia results, and you'll get a better idea.

Thats the snake!!!!

Thats so cool, thank you!!!

[Karen]

You're welcome! We saw maybe 4 or 5 of them at once this spring, doing their spring twitterpatter thing at Broadmoor, an Audubon sanctuary we visit, and I rushed home and looked them up. I had hoped for a more - I dunno - creative name for 'em!

[king2005]

You're welcome! We saw maybe 4 or 5 of them at once this spring, doing their spring twitterpatter thing at Broadmoor, an Audubon sanctuary we visit, and I rushed home and looked them up. I had hoped for a more - I dunno - creative name for 'em!

Diamondback watersnake would have been a nice name for them... The snake I caught was so breath taking... hi staring at us, blew us all away & we couldn't help by stare back

[BitsyNaceyDog]

We had a banded water snake on our back porch a couple nights ago.
My husband says to me "They're usually pretty nippy snakes, but I'm going to try to move him away from the house so the dogs don't find him". So what happens? Justin picks the snake up and gets bit! He did get the snake a [hopefully] safe distance away from the house though.

[king2005]

We had a banded water snake on our back porch a couple nights ago.
My husband says to me "They're usually pretty nippy snakes, but I'm going to try to move him away from the house so the dogs don't find him". So what happens? Justin picks the snake up and gets bit! He did get the snake a [hopefully] safe distance away from the house though.

Heheh poor Justin.. Atleast he had the snakes well being in mind.. So good for him Hope the bite wasn't too bad, I know watersnakes strike hard & more then once... nasty buggers they are...
I was only bitten several times by the 5 stripped skink.. heheh little bugger bites hard & doesn't let go lol