Watch Your Step! ©

 

A brown snake, storeria dekayi, that tried to hide under my boot, note the size comparison between the snake and my bootlace.  Photograph by the author.

  

Watch your step!  You never know what might be hiding in the field, beneath the leaves and dried grass!

 

In this case it turned out to be a brown snake, storeria dekayi, which tried to hide under my foot after we disturbed it while walking in a field, along an old railroad line.

 

The range of the brown snake, storeria dekayi, from “Storeria dekayi map.svg”, November 19, 2018 Wikimedia Commons, it can be found HERE.

 

Have you ever seen a brown snake?  They are a common snake, which has adapted quite nicely to living alongside humans, even in urban settings.  According to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, they are the most common snakes found in urban areas.  They thrive in residential areas, and are also often found in forests, brushy areas, fields, and marshes.  However, this is only the second brown snake that I have ever found in the wild, so even though they are a common snake, apparently, they just aren’t seen often, probably because they spend most of their life underground or under loose stones and rubble.  They can often be found above ground after a heavy rain or between October to November and late march and April, when they move to and from their hibernation spots¹.

 

A brown snake, storeria dekayi, that tried to hide under my boot, note the snake’s size and two parallel rows of dark spots bordering a light stripe down its back.  Photograph by the author.

 

Brown snakes can be found from southern Ontario and Quebec, in Canada, throughout the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, and into Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and possibly even into El Salvador, and there are several recognized sub-species of storeria dekayi².  Brown snakes are small snakes, usually between 6 to 13 inches (17 to 33 centimeters) long, that are brown, although sometimes they can be yellowish, grayish, or even reddish-brown.  According to Sara Viernum, the founder of “The Wandering Herpetologist”, a now defunct website, brown snakes have “two parallel rows of dark spots bordering a light stripe down their backs [as well as] pale venters with small dark spots along the edges”³  Also, they have a dark vertical streak on the side of the head just behind their eye.

 

The brown snake, storeria dekayi, that I saw in a field.  Moments before it had tried to hide under my boot.  Photograph by the author.

 

Brown snakes are not venomous and are very docile, although, according to Sara Viernum, “when threatened they will flatten their bodies to appear larger and release a musky fluid from their cloaca”⁴.  Brown snakes eat mostly slugs, earthworms, snails, and the occasional salamander, and are themselves preyed upon by large frogs and toads, other snakes, crows, hawks, blue jays, domesticated cats, and weasels.

 

From “Annual report of the New Jersey State Museum, 1906, “PLATE 3G, DE KAY'S BROWN SNAKE. Storeria dekayi (Holbrook)”, HERE.

 

Unfortunately for brown snakes, they are often mistaken for copperheads (agkistrodon contortix) and killed when they are spotted in suburban areas.  According to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, copperheads and brown snakes have quite different patterns and coloration: copperheads having distinctive hourglass-shaped bands on their backs and brown snakes having parallel lines of black spots separated by a lighter band.  Young copperheads, when less than 12 inches long (30 cm), have bright yellow tail tips, while young brown snakes have yellowish looking neck rings⁵.

 

So next time you are out for a walk in the woods, fields, or marshes of the wilder parts of eastern North America, or even if you are just in your back yard or along a city street, watch your step!  You never know you just might see a hard to find brown snake!

 

 A portion of a video I took of the brown snake, that tried to hide under my boot.  For a longer video, go HERE.

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ From Leslie Seaholm, “Storeria dekayi, Brown Snake”

 

² These subspecies include, storeria dekayi, or dekay's brown snake, also known simply as brown snake; storeria hidalgoensis, the Mexican yellow-bellied brown snake; storeria occipitomaculata, or red-bellied snake; storeria storerioides, the Mexican brown snake; and storeria victa, also known as the Florida brown snake.

 

From G.A. Hammerson, F. Mendoza-Quijano, and J. Lee, “Storeria dekayi, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species”, Jessie Szalay, “Facts About Brown Snakes” and Wikimedia Commons, “Storeria dekayi map.svg”

 

³ Venter is a term used by zoologists for “underside” or in this case a snake’s belly.

 

From Jessie Szalay; “Facts About Brown Snakes”

 

⁴ Ibid.

 

⁵ From Thomas, Glenn Thomas, Edited by J.D. Willson; “Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi)” and Jessie Szalay; “Facts About Brown Snakes”

 

 

Sources

 

Figura, David; “Meet New York's 17 slithery snakes: 3 are venomous (potentially deadly)” Posted Jun 07, 2016; Updated May 21, 2019, https://www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/2016/06/meet_new_yorks_17_slithery_snakes_--_three_are_poisonous_to_humans.html, August 30, 2020

 

Hammerson, G.A., Mendoza-Quijano, F. and Lee, J., “Storeria dekayi, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species”, 2013, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/63928/3131331, accessed September 4, 2020

 

Seaholm, Leslie; “Storeria dekayi, Brown Snake”, University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology, [© 2020 Regents of the University of Michigan], https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Storeria_dekayi/, accessed September 3, 2020

 

“Snakes of New York” SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry [© 2020 State University of New York], https://www.esf.edu/pubprog/brochure/snakes/snakes.htm, accessed August 30, 2020, accessed September 4, 2020

 

Szalay, Jessie; “Facts About Brown Snakes”, Live Science, February 03, 2016, [© Future US, Inc., New York, NY], https://www.livescience.com/53580-brown-snakes.html, accessed September 4, 2020

 

Thomas, Glenn; Edited by J.D. Willson; “Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi)”, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, https://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/stodek.htm, accessed August 30, 2020

 

Wikimedia Commons, “Annual report of the New Jersey State Museum, 1906, “PLATE 3G, DE KAY'S BROWN SNAKE. Storeria dekayi (Holbrook)”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_report_of_the_New_Jersey_State_Museum_(1906)_(19179675599).jpg, accessed September 3, 2020

 

Wikimedia Commons, “Storeria dekayi map.svg”, November 1, 2018, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Storeria_dekayi_map.svg, accessed September 4, 2020

 

New Hampshire Fish and Game, “Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi dekayi)”, [© New Hampshire Fish and Game Department], https://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/wildlife/profiles/brown-snake.html, accessed September 4, 2020