Snake

Had a dream last night - I seem to dream less as I've gotten older - about trying to clear out a bunch of snakes from the shallow sink hole in the front yard at the rental property in Richfield.  They were all hiding under the leaves.  Not surprising, as I was reading a story about rattlesnakes hiding in a house earlier in the day.  But there was one strange snake that was green and orange and white and sort of mechanical looking huddling with the others.  I captured it - it did try to bite and kept trying to bite - and took it inside to check it out.  Turned out to be an AI snake just let loose in the wild with a tracker.

So yeah...I'm having dreams about AI snakes inhabiting the property I lived at 14 years ago.  Apparently it's not about my wang, it's about some sort of creative thoughts.  If the Huffington Post is to be believed.  I wonder what it means that it's an AI snake, to my brain.  Not to some sort of general claptrap dream studies.

Two Signs and a Lizard

This sign was at Kennedy Space Center as you drove in.  Or out.  All I could think was, "Maybe I won't cache too much while I'm in Florida."  I don't have to worry too much about spiders and snakes here in central Minnesota.  I always have to remind myself the rest of the world isn't so benign.



I thought this sign combo near our hotel was funny.  Either you're too stupid to drive and plowing into the trees rather than the show entrance, or the show entrance is a do-not-enter zone, in which case you're just stuck at the signs, pondering how you're ever going to get into the building to take part in what looked to be an incredibly cheesy Pirate show, along the lines of Medieval Times.  See the trees decorated with lights for Christmas in the background?  Here's a closeup...


...infested with lizards!  You'll have to trust me that there were many more lizards than just this one.  One more geocaching hazard.  Reach for a cache, potentially squish a lizard.  Ick.

Herpetology Reconsidered

I've been giving some thought to the snake we saw on the trail in Wisconsin. This one...



Here he is in 2560x1920.

BigTree thought it might be a hognose, known for flaring it's neck like a cobra. But the Eastern Hognose looks sort of squat and stubby in all the pictures, and this snake was longer.

Reading about, I thought it might be a bull snake. But this Flickr pic didn't look like the snake. But it did look a little like the one on the Minnesota site, and the babies we saw would have been born about the right time. The Wisconsin DNR site noted blotchy front, ringed tail, perfect region, and comparison with milk and fox snakes (bottom of link) showing the Eastern Fox snake with an unmarked head. This snake definitely had a marked head. But Bull snakes are somewhat rare, and there's even a sighting initiative in Wisconsin.

Then Pete reminded me of a snake in his Fort Snelling biking post that turned out to be a fox snake. That looks pretty darn close. Particularly the part about the black line from the eye to the jaw, that's a giveaway, although the Wisconsin site didn't do a good job describing the markings, particularly on the page that showed a mostly unmarked head. Conclusion: Pete is the premier amateur herpetologist - it's a Fox Snake.