What is it with me and reptiles this spring???

[cairistiona]

I just swept part of the kitchen. And with the dust bunny came a tree frog. A TREE FROG. IN MY KITCHEN. WIGGLING IN MY HAND WHEN I PICKED UP THE DUST BUNNY.

One does not expect to pick up a wiggling tiny frog when one picks up a dust bunny made of shed cat hair.

One might or might not let out a little yelp.

Okay, I let out a yelp. Not a scream, just a startled, yelpish, "What the... wait what... THAT'S A FROG."

Because what even.

*sigh*

It didn't look good but was still alive, so I untangled its poor little back feet and then put it outside under some wet leaves because it really looked dehydrated. Lord only knows how long it's been in the kitchen. I only sweep about once every 3-4 days. I hope it lives. I do like little frogs, but I prefer them outside rather than, you know, in my kitchen.

So this latest is in addition to the speckled king snake who has taken up residence in the garage--discovered him when I went out to the car and nearly stepped on him. But he can stay. They're not poisonous and they eat rodents. You're winning at life if a king snake decides to grace your garage. (And king snakes are hilarious because they rattle their tail at you like they're some big, bad rattlesnake. Um, no, little guy. You are not a rattlesnake but A for effort. Here's your Oscar.)

And of course there was the aforementioned hapless turtle who died, although I've seen another one since so we're not devoid of turtles outside. Now if one of those gets in the house...!!!

Just another Monday in the little house in the little woods where apparently the wildlife is now scoffing at my puny walls and doors and waltzing right on in.

Comments

[elwenlj.livejournal.com]

I grinned all the way through this post. I hope the frog survives and you can keep your snake. I have enough trouble with the spiders here.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the snake in a few days, so I'm hoping it's just curled up in a dark corner somewhere. The frog... eh, I have my doubts it will live, but I'm keeping fingers crossed.

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

As long as it's not raining exceptionally hard and the animals don't arrive in pairs...

Psst, frogs aren't reptiles...

[shirebound]

I untangled its poor little back feet and then put it outside under some wet leaves

Awwww. I hope he lives a long, healthy froggy life.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Poor little froggie! I hope he lives! That's one thing I've never found in my place, although we have bullfrogs in the pond all through summer!

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I hope the frog survives. We have these little frogs that come out when it rains. I expect I'll be seeing them within the month taking shelter in my window wells.

No king snakes here - I think it's too cold or something equally silly.

We do have some large snapping turtles in the area and have helped their young cross our busy street in prior years. I'm hoping they'll be safe again this spring.

- Erulisse (one L)

[ellynn-ithilwen.livejournal.com]

How big are those snakes? (Oh, I can imagine the little guy trying to look like a bad-ass, really hilarious!!!)

We sometimes have little snakes around the house in the summer, but they're only about 30-40 cm (a foot or a little more), and they don't have much chance for a long life because of all of our cats...

[nefhiriel.livejournal.com]

XD I know how you feel. Somehow it makes all the difference once animals start showing up where they're not supposed to be. We had a bat in our bedroom once - and found out in the middle of the night, when our cat started chasing it around the room. The noises that thing made! Eesh. :s I think bats are pretty cute. But not when they're screaming around my room, that's for sure.

(BTW - got your email! We have Kelsi and her husband over this week, so I'll probably be pretty slow getting back. Especially since we're doing things like hanging out at coffee shops, and going to see that new Captain America movie thing that I've heard is petty good. :D)

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

(Yes, I know they're amphibians... poetic license aka laziness aka I didn't want a subject header longer than the actual post.)

It *did* rain exceptionally hard last night but so far no wildlife pair-ups on the front porch (or in the kitchen...)

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I checked for it last evening and no sign of it, so I'm hopeful he's okay now!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

We get slightly overrun with frogs and toads and lizards and turtles... the whole lot, minus alligators (thank goodness!!)

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

No sign of the frog last night when I checked before bed, so hopefully he got wet enough to recover and dig himself deeper beneath the leaves where it's warmest.

We have the common snapping turtle here... you see them along the roadside a lot. There's another, bigger, snapping turtle called the alligator snapping turtle in the southeastern part of the state where it's swampy. Those are "vulnerable" on the endangered scale, where the common one isn't even on the list there's so many. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable touching either one, though as babies I'm sure they're harmless. Adult alligator snapping turtles can snap off a finger. :/

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

This king snake was probably about 2 feet/60 cm? It was hard to really tell because he was curved around a corner, but I'd say somewhere in that range. Big enough I wasn't comfortable with the idea of picking him up like I do the much smaller prairie king snakes that often get all the way in the house. This was a young one... the adults reach 3-4 feet/90-120 cm. Definitely not picking up one that big! Plus as a defense mechanism they can release a sort of smelly goo. *wrinkles nose* But if you can get past their sharp bite (not poisonous but those little teeth are sharp--I've been bitten by a prairie king snake and it *hurts*) and the goo, they actually are pretty docile to handle. Not that I'll ever know!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a bat in your bedroom in the middle of the night is NOT GOOD. :/ I'm a nature nut but I prefer nature stay out of my bedroom. Especially at night.

And no problem with the beta... I knew I missed my window of opportunity this weekend with you guys. Have fun and hope you like the movie!

[layne67.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeps I googled up King Snake and they look super scary! Over here we have King Cobras and those are super poisonous *shudders*

Btw, I always thought the more colourful a snake is, the more dangerous it is? As a warning sign for others to stay away?

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

King snakes really aren't scary if you understand their importance to the ecosystem, and of course that they're not poisonous or aggressive. :) They're just big (some of them).

*puts on my Junior Herpetologist hat*

Color doesn't indicate whether a snake is venomous--coloration as a warning is more a feature in the insect world than with snakes. Snake coloration is usually due to habitat and camouflage. Here in North America, the only colorful poisonous snake is the coral snake, which has black, red and yellow bands (there's a mimic non-poisonous snake, the milk snake, with the same color bands, but the order of the colors is different. There's several sayings on how to tell the difference: "Red touch yellow, he's a dangerous fellow; red touch black, poison he lacks." Not that I can ever remember that, so if I ever see a milk snake, I'll just assume it's a coral snake! We don't have coral snakes here, but then again, we didn't have armadillos either, but they moved north, so I guess coral snakes can too).

Best at-a-glance feature of a poisonous snake is the shape of the head... venomous snakes in general have a triangular-shaped head, caused by the poison glands behind the jaw hinge. They're also called "pit vipers" because they'll have a slit (or pit) that looks almost like a second nostril between the nose and the eye on each side--it's used to sense heat. Non-poisonous snakes don't have that. They also have slit pupils instead of round... not that you want to get that close to a snake that you don't know is poisonous or not!

Really, the only sure way to know a venomous snake is to study photos and learn the various species in your region, and in the meantime, avoid all of them if you're not sure!