Rough green snake!

nice pictures the second bird is a green heron, I'm pretty sure. I'm sure that blue heron will be showing up at my pond soon trying to eat my goldfish on its way to the south.
 
I use to see alot of those green snakes near my house at a place called crows woods. Haven't seen one in years but haven't been looking real hard. Once again nice pics.
 
Thanks guys, i'm going to check back at this spot maybe next week?? I figured there should be a hibernation den near by, according to my field guides green snakes should be hibernating by now! So he shouldn't be far from a den.
 
NJSnakeMan said:
Thanks guys, i'm going to check back at this spot maybe next week?? I figured there should be a hibernation den near by, according to my field guides green snakes should be hibernating by now! So he shouldn't be far from a den.
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Is there some reliable evidence that rough green snakes use communal hibernacula (dens)?

Dave
 
I tried looking up on that- came out empty. Only thing close enough i found is that they have communal egg laying sites. Something i never knew before!

Oh yeah- i wanted to ask you. Since radio tracking systems cost to much for me, i decided to do it the cheap way! Is it okay to mark the snake's undersides with a black permanet marker? Is this harmful to them? And will the marking stay for a decent ammount of time? Or will it come off the next time they shed? Since i herp around my area alot, it looks like i re-catch some of my snakes, and would like to mark them.
 
uuglypher said:
Is there some reliable evidence that rough green snakes use communal hibernacula (dens)?

Dave
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Dave, when I first moved in to bamber my front porch was red brick and it had some holes in the morter. Rough green snakes (more than 1) lived in there (there was a hollow in the dirt below the brick) for about 5 years. Then my wife started having nightmares about them. In the nightmares she could see them curled up inbetween the windows and screens, trying to get in.

I used to see them in the bushes of my front yard as a common ocurrence. Very cool. Alas, I had to bite the bullet. When I destroyed the porch I caught and released at least 2 of them into the woods across Lacey Road.
 
Oh yeah- i wanted to ask you. Since radio tracking systems cost to much for me, i decided to do it the cheap way! Is it okay to mark the snake's undersides with a black permanet marker? Is this harmful to them? And will the marking stay for a decent ammount of time? Or will it come off the next time they shed? Since i herp around my area alot, it looks like i re-catch some of my snakes, and would like to mark them.[/QUOTE]

Never having tried to mark snakes with a permanent felt-tip marker, I've no way of knowing how long the mark would last, except to be certain that it would remain with the shec epidermis at the next ecdysis.

As for planning to permanently mark snakes, given that they are protected species under NJ law, you'd better check with the state conservation and wildlife authorities before attempting to tattoo or clip scales for marking purposes. If you were to start a scale-clipping or tattoo marking program you could inadvertently really screw up the efforts of a field investigator who has gone to the trouble to obtain the necessary scientific collecting permits before embarking on his or her own field research.

Dave
 
BobM said:
Dave, when I first moved in to bamber my front porch was red brick and it had some holes in the morter. Rough green snakes (more than 1) lived in there (there was a hollow in the dirt below the brick) for about 5 years. Then my wife started having nightmares about them. In the nightmares she could see them curled up inbetween the windows and screens, trying to get in.

I used to see them in the bushes of my front yard as a common ocurrence. Very cool. Alas, I had to bite the bullet. When I destroyed the porch I caught and released at least 2 of them into the woods across Lacey Road.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Your observation suggests to me that your "domestic" rough greens had simply found a friendly habitat with an adequate food supply to sustain them that happened to be in the immediate vicinity of adequate hibernation quarters. It would seems that for individuals of many snake species their site chosen for hibernation is arrived at by chance, rather than by some purposeful hibernacular territorial imperative (God - do I have a way with pompous words, or WHAT?)

Anyway, I'd really like to know why some rattler species (timbers, prairies) consistently use communal hibernacula, and other species living in the same range as the communal hibernators do not - and why the Copperhead (genus Ancistrodon/Agkistyrodon) is, over much of its range, a communal denner, and the Cottonmouth (same genus) is not. And why one old pilot blacksnake (Elaphe obsoleta) in Mianus Gorge, NY hibernated for at least five years in a copperhead den in a granite talus slope. I marked him the first time I caught him, kept him over the winter, and released him at the den the next spring - and re-caught him each of four succeeding springs when I found him sunning within a five-foot radius of the same boulder at the den. I caught other pilot blacks in and near the Gorge, but never found another at the den site. Black racers and milk snakes also used the den. It would seem there's more to it than merely the local availability of a physically suitable potential denning site.
Isn't it amazing about how much of the biology of our fellow creatures (not to mention of our own species) we remain so massively ignorant?
Dave
 
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