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Herpetofauna - One Life's List
Yellowbelly Water Snake Union Co., Illinois. October 1977. |
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How often do you get the chance to nab a water snake from a canoe? It
happened that way with one flavigaster, pictured at left, on a canoe trip through Mingo Swamp
in southern Missouri, back in the mid '80s. The snake was entwined in some buttonbush, and I was
able to get a hand on it as slipped towards the water. That was a very
good trip for water snakes - we saw Yellowbellies, Midlands, Broad-Bandeds, and
Diamondbacks. I see Yellowbellies regularly down in the swamps of
southern Illinois, day and night. The one in the second photo was spotted basking near the bank of Winters Pond, in the LaRue-Pine Hills Ecological Area of southern Illinois. Throughout their range, they are often mistaken for the venomous Cottonmouth, and needlessly killed. |
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