Texas Patchnose Snake

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Central Texas Whipsnake



Well this past Friday on the way to a small local cave I saw a large snake in the road. Upon approaching the snake I realized it was a very large central Texas whipsnake. Knowing what it was I knew that I would have to be very fast in order to catch and photograph it. As we slowed down I jumped out of the still moving car and ran towards the snake. Being a close relative of the coachwhip it was very fast and as soon as it saw me it darted off into the bushes. As soon as it hit the trees it immediately headed up into the large Juniper trees. As I tried to follow it through the tree tops it easily outran me. After numerous attempts to catch up with it in the treetops I finally grabbed it from underneath and climbed down the tree. After a few photographs it was released unharmed.
An interesting feature of this snake is that based on it's length compared to my height is that I believe this to be the new record for this species. I am about 6ft tall and this snake was about 5 or 6 inches longer than I am tall.

1 comment:

  1. this was an amazing catch!! Can't believe how quick that snake was & how high up in the tree!

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