Here’s something I didn’t expect to find in November, but that’s because I didn’t know much about snakes.
A year ago at Hillman State Park near Florence, PA I found this freshly shed snake skin on a gravel road. I must have just missed the snake.
Snakes shed because their skins don’t grow. The skin stretches a bit but when it gets too tight the snake makes a tear on something sharp and slides out of the outer layer. The new skin underneath is the right size until the snake grows more. This snake chose the warmest place available to shed his skin — a sunny, heat-absorbing gravel road.
Snakes are cold-blooded (ectotherms) and can’t survive freezing so they go into hibernation or brumation in communal dens below the frost line. I thought they’d all be underground by November 1, but no. Even in cold northern Pennsylvania snakes don’t go to their winter dens until late October or early November. In Hillman State Park on 1 November 2015 the temperature ranged from 53oF to 66oF, very respectable snake weather.
This year is even better for snakes. Their favorite temperature is 80o-90oF and we reached that last week — a record-breaking 80oF on 2 November 2016.
It was a good week to leave his skin behind.
(photo by Kate St. John)
I also had a snake experience this week (in NC), the last warm day before our cold snap. It was a Black rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) and used some sunny spots on my front porch to warm itself. Hopefully it will winter under my house along with some garter snakes, and maybe that copperhead that I haven’t seen since I moved in!
Excuse me!!!!!!!!
I may be wrong but aren’t copper heads poisonous?
Sue you are a much braver person than me. Snakes under my house! I would be huddled in a corner wimpering.
WOW!
Sorry. I did not mean to post 3 times. Maybe the thought of snakes made me lose my mind.
Karen, I removed the extra posts& I fully understand the freak out factor. No copperheads for me! … Maybe they bother us more than Sue because we both live further north.
But Copperheads do occur in Pennsylvania (as well as Timber Rattlesnakes). In fact, I think I’d heard that there was an increase in the number of Copperhead bites last year. The only snakes I’ve ever seen in the wild were Garter snakes though.
Anyway, what kind of snake shed that skin pictured above?
J, I don’t know what species it was.