Tuesday, June 20, 2006

That Crawleth Upon the Ground

While bustling about this morning (as much as one can bustle on crutches) I happened to cast a glance at my sandal lying on the floor of the foyer. Lying athwart the shoe was what I first interpreted as a loose shoelace. My interpretation, however, had to be rapidly revised when the shoelace gave a little writhe, and a tiny little forked tongue darted out its front end:



I darted for my camera, which I happened to have handy, and then called the rest of the family to come admire our visitor, which was about the girth of a standard pencil, though about twice as long. It occurred to me that the little beastie looked an awful lot like a tiny little copperhead (a quite venomous local hazard), so I warned the children back, telling them to hold the dogs, and hobbled over to the laptop in the kitchen. It took me no time to determine that our guest was not a copperhead after all, but an infant Eastern Milk Snake, a harmless -- indeed, beneficial -- hunter of small rodents and insects. As I came back into the foyer, I found that Wonder Woman, who is utterly fearless with bugs and spiders, had gently scooped up the serpent, cooing endearments to it the while, and taken it outdoors and deposited it in a shady place in the front beds.

Glad she waited until it was, you know, safe.

13 comments:

Kevin Wolf said...

Cool pic.

Man, I like this name: Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum. It's deserving of song.

Anonymous said...

One thing's for sure: Wonder Woman is aptly named!

harmfulguy said...

Red touch black, poison lack.

XTCfan said...

See, I told you guys that all those snake-handling services at the local church would pay off!

Anonymous said...

Samuel L. Jackson ain't got nuthin' on WW.

Anonymous said...

Black touch red, protect your head?

Black touch red, you'll soon be dead?

Black touch red, holy fkbkarj!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

If some creature would make me freak out, stop breathing and drop dead just from the mere sight of it, I would not describe that creature as "harmless."

I give Wonder Woman lots of credit.

That thing may as well be one of those alligators eating people alive down in FL.

Will Divide said...

Uhm... are you positive that wasn't a (very poisonous) coral snake? And, between you, me and the herpetology lab, the mother of your kids is out of her mind.

Just to be on the safe side, I did a quick sweep through my apartment with baseball bat and fireplace tongs, because, well, just because. Also made a mental note never to travel south of Toledo, OH ever again.

Anonymous said...

Ahhhhh!!!!!!

That picture is still up!!!

/runs away screaming....

Neddie said...

GlueBirl: I guess you're probably not going to want to hear about the seven-foot-long freshly shedded skin I found out by the potting shed a couple of weeks ago... (Yes, it had belonged to a snake, not a pod-person!)

I believe WW's exact words were, "I want that muthafuckin' snake out of this muthafuckin' house!"

The proper aphorism is,

Red touch black: good weather, Jack
Black touch red: sailors get head.

Will Divide said...

Mein Gott, Neddie. It took 24 hours before I realized that you are in fact sharing your space with Baby Snakes!!!

darwin524 said...

I am a tropical ecologist. They grow them venomous snakes big down here. Tropical herpetologists are generally nuts.
One famous story:
A Famous Herper gathers students around on a nature walk. He scoops up a colorful striped snake and says,"OK, everybody gather round. What we have here is a coral snake mimic. You can tell its a mimic because the red band here is touching the "AHHHHHHHhhhh!"
Said snake goes flying.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, snakes are cool. I wish they'd sic some on the subway rats here in NYC.

(Yeah, I know, the rats would win by eating their eggs. But I can dream....)