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Does anyone here know about snakes? I think I saw one this weekend, and I meant to point it out to the people who live in the farm where we were staying, but in the rush of leaving I forgot. It was very black, shiny, about half an inch thick (don't know how long because it was curled up) and lined with small (~1/8 inch) diamond-shaped orange/pink spots. It was hard to see it properly, so for all I know it could have been a garden hose, but the location and the way it was curled up made it unlikely for that to be the case. However, I couldn't spot a head. Any idea?

Perhaps it is a corn snake or a king snake. I will look it up when I get home.

Did you ever learn how to say "Go Turkey!" ?

Shilgia, reading your post more closely, I see that you saw a largely black snake. The glossy tone points to Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta), and the spots to a young snake; the species gets blacker as it grows. But, it could be a Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). Take this with a grain of salt, as I'm not a herpetologist.

Black Rat Snake was what I thought of but I wasn't sure about the spots. They're pretty common. (And harmless except I guess to rats.)

A nice sighting, indeed.

Timber Rattlesnakes at the northeast edge of their range (i.e. New England and New York) can be rather dark.

Before posting about the snake here, I looked up websites on snakes in New York state. I looked at the Black Rat Snake and at the Black Racer, but they both didn't have the type of spots that this one had.

After your tip, peromy, I looked for pictures of 'juvenile' Black Rat Snakes, who indeed appear to have spots, but the spots look like this, whereas the spots I saw were much smaller.

Maybe it was a garden hose after all. (But it would have to be a very flexible garden hose; one that can fit 2 feet of length or so into a spot of 3 inches in diameter by collapsing upon itself.)

P.S.: What is obsolete about the Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta?

I think Black Rat Snakes are being replaced by Brown Rat Snakes? Unless they are all being put on an airplane.

Perhaps as the snakes grow the pattern can match what you saw? The juveniles don't suddenly become all black, it takes some months to change.

Edited by: Peromyscus101

That is true, but from the pictures linked on this page it appears that the pattern either fades or disappears in a sort of randomly distributed way. (For example like this.) The snake I saw had a very clear pattern: very bright spots on a very black snake, and the spots were forming a regular pattern: they were, as far as I could see, about equally spaced.

Interesting. As I said, I am not well-versed about snakes. At least it wasn't on an airplane with you.