Basking Baby, Baby the Bullsnake wakes up from winter hibernation on a warm, sunny March morning, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Guess who woke up?
Baby the Bullsnake emerged from her winter coil and slithered in all her elongated glory around the cage this past Thursday morning. Jim called me out to look, and as soon as I got near she glided in my direction and madly flicked her tongue about.
Did she wake up hungry?
It was a perfect day for coming out of deep slumber. The sun was strong and her space warm. Since keeping about a dozen geraniums and other annuals in the room, her potting shed house has a loamy smell and feel.
Bullsnakes are one of the largest snakes in the U.S. They are non-venomous, but since they tend to look like rattlesnakes (both have yellow scales with brown markings) and coil and shake their tails when provoked, people sometimes mistakenly slaughter the bullsnake.
But the truth is, the bullsnake is beneficial to the environment, and especially to farmers. Because of their size—they can grow up to almost six feet—the bullsnake eats fairly large mammals, such as rats and the destructive gopher. (In fact, bullsnakes are a sub-species of the larger gopher snake species.)
Bullsnakes get their name from the fact that they sometimes make a loud snorting noise, like a hiss but with deep breathing put into it. (When Baby does this she reminds me of those accordian-like contraptions used to stoke a fire. Her whole body contracts and expands, contracts and expands, as if she’s hyperventilating.)
Bullsnakes come out of hibernation when temperatures rise in spring. It’s important their homes have both shady areas and sunny so they can move to the shade in the hottest parts of the day and into the sun when it’s cool. (Snakes are attracted to heat, including that warmth that tends to accumulate on a road black-top, which is why we often see snakes run over by cars.)
Baby will soon be getting her first meal of the season—a live rat from the pet store. I imagine she’ll be hungry. She’ll squeeze the rat with her body and then swallow it whole, head first. She won’t chew it, but rather it will move through her body and be digested over a matter of days. And, as it expands her body, her skin will likely start shedding. And Jim or one of the girls will call me to come look as the old skin gets left behind and leaves behind a shiny brilliant new layer.
Thus begins another year of living with and being fascinated by our most unique pet. Welcome to wakefulness, Baby!
Resources
- Reptiles and Amphibians of Minnesota (QM, you need to keep an eye out for bullsnakes in your part of the world)
- Bullsnakes Are Beneficial Environmentalists!
- New Mexico Snakes — recognizing the poisonous ones and controlling them around homes
- Frank Thayer — Reptiles
- Snake Shedding 101
-Related to posts Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?, snake awake haiku, and Meet Baby!
ybonesy, wow, Baby’s Back! Fantastic photos. She looks gorgeous in that first photo, almost like she’s posing for the camera. You really get to see the changing seasons each year with the seasonal sleeping and waking of Baby.
Great link on Minnesota Snakes & Amphibians. I honestly didn’t know the bull snake was the biggest we had in Minnesota. Sounds like they hang around the river banks of the St. Croix, Minnesota, and Mississippi, mainly in southern Minnesota.
And then I read this little bit below. They can be quite ferocious. Have you ever seen Baby do any of these behaviors? Just curious if it’s different in captivity when they might not feel as threatened as they do when surprised in the wild:
Escape is their first line of defense, but if they feel cornered, they flatten their head and spread their jaws giving their head a diamond shape, puff their bodies up with air, and let out a hair raising hiss. No other North American snake can hiss like a Pituophis can! It is not only loud, but very raspy sounding because of a flap of cartilage in front of the trachea vibrates as air passes by it. Furthermore, they vibrate their tails producing a buzzing sound. Sometimes, this is merely a bluff, and they may be slow to actually bite, but many times they will strike and bite with vigor.
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Oh, yb, on Baby Awake (two), the tongue in that one is amazing. I checked them out in the larger size on your Flickr account. What an amazing forked tongue. I wonder what they do with those forks in their tongues? I’m guessing smell? Cool photo.
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yb, I pulled a card the other day and it was Ram, a form of rebirth, a good card for me right now. While I was at it, I was looking at Snake. I think you have these Animal Spirits cards from Susan Seddon Boulet. Her Snake Dancer drawing is based on a story from Ursula K. Le Guin thats she illustrated — Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight.
I might have written this in one of the comments before, but here’s a refresher:
Snake has been given numerous symbolic qualities over time and across cultures–from sexual, compassionate, and clairvoyant qualities to the cycle of life, death, rebirth. Poisonous snakes have been associated with healing and transformation in many Native American belief systems; the poison is thought to activate primal energies, which, if manipulated correctly, can cure rather than kill.
In the Middle Eastern epic Gilgamesh, a serpent acquires the flower of everlasting youth, which allows it to shed its skin and be reborn.
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yb, Brant wa s hooked the first time he saw Baby on thise blog. He is so certain he wants a snake! Last time he was here we went on line to check out snakes native to PA. He chose three & the Bull snake topped his list. We’ll see. He wanted a snake that would eat mice, etc.. He thought that that meant that they they were venomous. More explaining & he finally got it. I don’t knwo what will become of it, but he seems pretty determined. I can’t wait to show him this post tomorrow! D
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Alright, I’ll bite…Why “Baby?”
BTW
…”a loud snorting noise, like a hiss but with deep breathing put into it”… “whole body contracts and expands, contracts and expands”…sounds like every sleeping man I ever dated and the one I finally married 😉
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LOL, Heather. How do you get any sleep?!
Why Baby? Well, we inherited Baby when we bought this place. The previous owner asked if we wanted to keep her since she had such a nice place in the potting shed/green house room. And that was her name, probably because he had found her when she was a baby, 20ish years ago.
QM, I’ve only seen Baby coil, puff, and hiss a handful of times, but when she does it is frightening. Her whole body does that expand/contract/expand/contract thing and she seems to use the air to snort and hiss. But I honestly haven’t noticed the flat, diamond shaped head. I’ll have to check for that next time she does it. BTW, she’s mostly done it when a group of people, curious friends or neighbors, crowd around her cage to see her.
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QM, I’m glad you noticed the photo with Baby’s black forked tongue. I was snapping like mad to try to capture the tongue, as she kept flicking it at me, but it moves so fast it was hard to catch in a photo.
I believe the tongue is a sensor for smell. Why forked? I found this quote from Science Magazine [LINK]:
“The serpent’s forked tongue has intrigued humankind for millennia, but its function has remained obscure. Theory, anatomy, neural circuitry, function, and behavior now support a hypothesis of the forked tongue as a chemosensory edge detector used to follow pheromone trails of prey and conspecifics. The ability to sample simultaneously two points along a chemical gradient provides the basis for instantaneous assessment of trail location. Forked tongues have evolved at least twice, possibly four times, among squamate reptiles, and at higher taxonomic levels, forked tongues are always associated with a wide searching mode of foraging. The evolutionary success of advanced snakes might be due, in part, to perfection of this mechanism and its role in reproduction.”
A bit scientific, I realize, but there you have it. I did get the sense that Baby was trying to figure out if I was something she could eat.
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diddy, cool about Brant. I hope he gets the bull snake. BTW, they do grow big and need a large space. Baby has her own room with a very large space in it. One whole bank of her space has south-facing windows so that she gets lots of sun, which she loves. And the other side has east-facing windows. (Her space is one of the sunniest in the entire house!)
Also, the room is heated. It can’t get below about 50 degrees, or she would die. And they need food about every couple of weeks. In Baby’s case, because she’s so big, she needs a rat, not a mouse. But you have to make sure she is absolutely hungry, because if she doesn’t eat it right away, the rat can attack and harm her. That’s why we’ll wait just a while to feed her, watch to see when she starts striking at us as we come in. Then we’re certain she’s ready for the rat. And she will squeeze it and eat it within minutes of getting it.
So, my only caution is to think through the growth part, especially, and the associated need to provide a large, warm space where she can get her share of sunning.
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yb, your comment about how Baby has to have the heat above 50 degrees reminded me of something I read last night at one of your links — that sometimes snakes have trouble shedding. They shed because their skin doesn’t expand like ours does, and they need humidity to shed.
The article mentioned that sometimes in the wild you’ll see snakes with those skin lids over their eyes (I think I’ve seen photographs of snakes like that) and it’s because they are having trouble shedding. Eventually, it can cause blindness (which can spell the end of a snake). I just wondered if you ever had to mist Baby or if shedding has ever been a problem for her. Just curious.
Oh, that’s crazy about the forked tongue — the forked tongue as a chemosensory edge detector used to follow pheromone trails of prey and conspecifics. The Chemosensory Edge Detector — wouldn’t that make a good name for a band? 8)
I was also thinking about the old language usage of speaking with a “forked tongue.” You don’t hear it as much as you used to.
I also had to look up conspecific — an organism belonging to the same species as another organism. I had no clue what it meant. I learned something new x 2.
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diddy, what does J. think about getting the Bull Snake for Brant? And did Brant like the photos in yb’s post? (Make sure he sees the one with the tongue. Amazing shot!) Where would you put the bull snake’s home? Or would it be someplace else. I’m trying to imagine which place would have enough heat.
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J’s not really into the idea, as the snake would most likely be kept here. We’ll see. I didn’t get to show him the blog, we had 8 other people here today & I made London Broil, crab souffle, buffalo chicken dip, & scallops wrapped in bacon. I had lots of help with the meal. R3 & a friend of ours were put in charge of a few things & I appreciated the help so much. However, when I mentioned Baby to Brant, he knew exactly what I was talking about. It was a beautiful day here, temps in the upper 60’s, so Brant brought his skateboard & scooter along. Yesterday,we had a high of 72 degrees & I felt guilty when I saw on the news that you & Liz had a high of 28. D
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Wow, diddy, those are some high temps. I didn’t realize it could get so high this early in PA. I’m sure it’s a nice respite from a pretty severe winter.
Today it is raining, yeah (and speaking of humidity, QM). Has been since about 3a, not a heavy rain but steady. Really wet out there. Whew, we needed this!
QM, I haven’t noticed any difficulty that Baby’s had shedding. Sometimes her eyes get a steely look, and I think that’s the skin separating and creating a sort of top layer. But she sheds pretty frequently. Like I said, she lives in a greenhouse/potting shed, and there are always plants in there. Lately, with the geraniums, which we water year-round, it’s really nice in there. A bit humid. Plus she always has water in her bath, and she’ll often lay the middle part of her body in the water.
diddy, meant to say…YUM!
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diddy, that sounds like quite the feast you had yesterday. It’s making me hungry (I’m eating cold cereal — organic raisin bran). You had a great day for it, too. I did wonder if J. might not take a hankerin’ to the idea of a snake at your place. It sounds like they don’t take much upkeep though. Well, except for the feeding of the mice ritual.
We have a Winter Storm Watch today. After a sunny weekend, the temps are dropping, it’s gray, and colder. We are expecting snow again. And just when we thought the driveway was thawed and melted for good. For some reason, it seems colder when it gets more humid here and the snow is melting. I think it’s actually warmer but more damp. That damp rainy cold that yb might be experiencing. Or maybe it’s too dry there for that kind of rain. I’m nearly ready for Spring. 8)
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Not many families can claim a snake as a pet.
We had two for many years–beautiful red and cream colored corn snakes. They stayed in my older daughter’s room. It was quite a sacrifice for her, but she really loved those snakes.
And why was it a sacrifice? For a couple of years when all three kids were in school, I went back to work full-time. We had a lady come clean the house every other week, but she was deathly afraid of snakes and refused to go anywhere near J’s room. So it was either get rid of the snakes or J had to keep her room vacuumed, etc. J chose the vacuuming and dusting routine. (Not that it killed her to keep her own room clean!)
Can’t wait to see Baby again. I remember Baby being very large, but I don’t think we were properly introduced! 🙂
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Oooo, I like those red and cream colored corn snakes. Isn’t there a venomous snake that has similar color markings? It seems that for every venemous snake there is also a non-venemous that looks similar enough to be confused for the poisonous one.
Sounds like J learned a valuable lesson about responsibility associated with pets. I know the sacrifice Dee makes with her horse is having to get up half an hour earlier every morning to feed him, and to clean out his corral every couple of days. She gripes a lot, but she does the work.
Baby is very large, so large that I question whether she’s a she after all. The males are supposed to grow up to 6-feet, but Baby is definitely approaching that size if not larger. Although, she is at least 20 years old and perhaps closer to 30 (also rare to live that long, esp in the wild) so I guess it makes sense that she’d be so big.
That’s another thing to think about with snakes as pets. (And horses.) (I’m thinking of you, now, diddy.) They live long, and once the kids are grown, the grown-up has to be committed to taking the pet into its old age. You couldn’t possibly let a snake like Baby out into the wild after its entire life spent in captivity. She’d probably get picked off by a hawk or eagle or some other predator right away, not having honed the skills of the wild.
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[…] to posts Baby Wakes From Her Nap, Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?, snake awake haiku, and sticks for legs and […]
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[…] isn’t the first reptilian visitor to the house. Week before last I had to escort a young bullsnake out to the garden. I found it trying to slither across the floor in our bedroom. It wasn’t […]
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