A wee visitor

Vince · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:54 pm Post subject: A wee visitor

Have a wee visitor in my backyard. My wife Tricia was pulling old plan fronds out of the Golden Cane, looked down and the fella below was curled up beside her, just veging out and taking no notice of her.

It's a 1.5 metre Carpet snake, one of our native pythons. I left him there, he wasn't doing any harm.

lesterg3 · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Lil guys probably eats a lot of less desirable visitors.

Vince · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:36 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Nothing surer Lester. We have a few mice and small rats around here, and the girl next door has a couple if chickens, so he won't go hungry.

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

Oh man, you ever watch chickens? I'll bet they kill more mice than a snake. Toss a mouse out in the middle of a mess of chickens and enjoy the brawl, they will go nuts fighting over it.

I don't mind non-venomous snakes... you guys down under have some particularly nasty venomous ones don't you?

-DallanC

gelandangan · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:08 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Hmm in some country it is lunch..
LOL

tikkat3 · Super Member Joined: Jul 30, 2006 Posts: 800

DallanC wrote:

Oh man, you ever watch chickens? I'll bet they kill more mice than a snake. Toss a mouse out in the middle of a mess of chickens and enjoy the brawl, they will go nuts fighting over it.

I don't mind non-venomous snakes... you guys down under have some particularly nasty venomous ones don't you?

-DallanC

Found this interesting
Facts and Figures: World's Most Venomous Snakes
Which snake species is the most venomous depends on the measure used. The average or the maximum venom yield from milking could be suggested, but these measures can be criticised as not reflecting the impact of a real bite. The measure generally acknowledged as best reflecting how dangerous a snake's venom is is that of LD50. The lower this number, the less venom is required to cause death. By that measure, the most venomous snake in the world is Australia's inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus). The table below gives the top 25 species in order, their LD50, and their distribution.

Snake Species LD50* Distribution
1. Inland taipan 0.025 Australia
2. Eastern brown 0.053 Australia
3. Coastal taipan 0.099 Australia
4. Tiger snake 0.118 Australia
5. Black tiger snake 0.131 Australia
6. Beaked sea snake 0.164 Australia
7. Black tiger snake (Chappell Island ssp.) 0.194 - 0.338 Australia
8. Death adder 0.400 Australia
9. Gwardar 0.473 Australia
10. Spotted brown snake 0.360 (in bovine serum albumin) Australia
11. Australian copperhead 0.560 Australia
12. Cobra 0.565 Asia
13. Dugite 0.660 Australia
14. Papuan black snake 1.09 New Guinea
15. Stephens' banded snake 1.36 Australia
16. Rough scaled snake 1.36 Australia
17. King cobra 1.80 Asia
18. Blue-bellied black snake 2.13 Australia
19. Collett's snake 2.38 Australia
20. Mulga snake 2.38 Australia
21. Red-bellied black snake 2.52 Australia
22. Small eyed snake 2.67 Australia
23. Eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake 11.4 North America
24. Black whipsnake > 14.2 Australia
25. Fer-de-lance > 27.8 South America
*LD50: mg/kg in saline by subcutaneous injection in mice.

Hope the formatting stays, the last published death that I know of was a bloke bitten by a Gwardar (Western Brown) a couple of weeks ago

Vince · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:34 am Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Yep...as Tiks shows, we have no shortage of venomous, and rather deadly, snakes.

Fortunately most of our snakes won't bite unless they feel threatened or you accidentally tread on one. The only exceptions to this are the Tiger snake and the King Brown snake. Both will have a go for the fun of it, and the Tiger snake has been known to chase people silly enough to stir it up. Also, this doesn't take into account our spiders and marine stingers.

Where I live, there is no shortage of Eastern Brown snakes, the bush around us (only about 150 metres away) hide plenty of them.

I know this has been posted before, but it's still good for a laugh...

Come to Australia

Vince · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:35 am Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Well, our mate is back again. I was going to say "little mate", but this time he was stretched out, slowly ambling through the garden...he is a little over 1.5 metres, at least 4 feet long, but he still has plenty of growing in him.

The girl next door txt me and told me "the snake is back and he's in here!!" She has a 6 week old King Charles Spaniel and she took him outside for a squat and he decided to squat about 6 feet from the snake. The dog didn't see it, but my neighbour did... Confused

I went in and was going to pick him up and relocate him, but he crawled up into a hibiscus tree and wasn't doing any harm, so I just left him alone. I was able to get to within about 12 inches of his head and he wasn't concerned, so I thought, leave him be, he's harmless.

slimjim · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:39 am Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

That list of snakes seems to have Australia written all over it! Gives me the slithers.

gelandangan · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:13 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Its Ok Slim, they keep the rat population down. Very Happy

Vince · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:33 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

It's raining today, so it's a waste of time looking to see where he has taken up residence...maybe later. It would be great if I can get him used to me so I can get close to him without him feeling threatened. He would make an awesome wild "pet", one who has the run if anywhere he wishes to go.

slimjim · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Yea, maybe he is training you until the day he gets bigger.

Vince · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:24 pm Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

8O

I never thought of that Slim. Scary thought mate.

tikkat3 · Super Member Joined: Jul 30, 2006 Posts: 800

What amazed me the most when I picked up a small carpet snake was that they can open their mouth up over 180 degrees.
The last big one I could only lift a couple of metres up, so I ended up dragging it down to the garden

Vince · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:13 am Post subject: Re: A wee visitor

Yep...like most snakes, that can dislocate their jaw to take in a large feed. Biggest carpet snake I've ever seen was in the mountains in the back of Canungra on Leavers Plateau. This fella was able to partially fit through the mesh in the wire fence...until he swallowed a critter, then he couldn't get back because of the bulge in his belly. He was about 12 feet long. We felt sorry for him do we carefully cut the wire fence enough to allow him to get clear.