Snakes that Play Dead

I caught my two feral cats in the yard poking at this dead snake. So I scooped it up in a net and placed it in a jar for the husband to identify when he got home. I knew it was not a typical black snake, the tail did not taper down to a thin point and his head looked odd somehow. Sure enough, the husband believes it to be a Hog Nosed Snake and he recalls reading that they will roll over and act dead as a defense tactic. Image how surprised I was when he started moving around in the jar. To test the theory, we poked at him and sure enough he did a death roll and played dead for about 15 minutes. You will notice his nose points upward in the one photo. Look at the exaggerated open mouth with the tongue sticking out. Also, no fangs or teeth. I have never been afraid of snakes and won't kill one if it is non poisonous, so we drove him to a remote area away from my house and released him. He looked very similar to the pond snake we had last year, thus in case we are wrong about his type, did not want him in my pond eating my fish.

Oh! We are hanging the miniatures show over the next two days. The private collectors preview (invitation only) is Thursday, the show opens on Friday and the artist's reception is on Sunday. Don't expect any blogging til next week end.