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