Kirtland's Snake, Pt. 2

It's been a whirlwind last few days; off to the fabulous Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia for a speaking engagement, then out to the spectacular coastal Atlantic waters of Barnegat Light, New Jersey. I saw lots of interesting things on this brief foray, including some sensational birds, and I've got photos. I'll get to some of those soon.

The previous post, about an oddly marked (or unmarked) Kirtland's snake, Clonophis kirtlandii, generated some fairly heated debate. Go read the comments to see for yourself. After seeing those remarks, I sent the photos of this snake to some people who know snakes well, and also see Kirtland's snakes on a regular basis. Their opinions run counter to those in the pro queen snake camp, agreeing with Jeff Davis's initial identification of an unpatterned Kirtland's snake.

The question of this snake's identification is rather beyond me - I've seen scads of queen snakes, but never the much scarcer Kirtland's snake. Although I sometimes forget, I normally remember lessons learned of the folly of trying to label something which is tricky to identify without having any direct experience with said tricky organism. Hence, the value of seasoned experts such as Jeff Davis or any of the other authorities that weighed in to me with their thoughts on this snake.

One cautionary note: in the comments, much was made of the seemingly inappropriate habitat for Kirtland's snake shown in the photos. The animal was found in an area that still has noteworthy swaths of fairly intact habitat, and the stream corridor in this area still boasts spring-fed meadows hosting unusual plants such as hairy-fruited sedge, Carex trichocarpa. This sort of graminoid-dominated meadow is probably a pretty decent habitat for Kirtland's snake, from what I gather, and the county from which this record was made has previous Kirtland's snake records.

In any event, one of my snake-seeking friends, who probably sees more diversity and numbers of Ohio snakes in the field than most of us do, made the following interesting photo. It is a montage of a known queen snake, the aforementioned Kirtland's snake in the middle, and a known Kirtland's snake. The photo features tight head shots, so that detailed comparisons of the scales can be made. I've uploaded it at the highest resolution available to me, so by clicking on the photo you should be able to see things pretty well.

The devil is sometimes in the details. Have a look and see what you think.

Kirtland's snake

 Photo: Gina Smith

A few days ago, I was intrigued to see an email drop into my box with the curious heading of "mystery snake" or something to that effect. I clicked on the attached photo, and this is what I saw.

The email was routed to me from our communications people at work, and came from Gina Smith. She had found the reptile near a central Ohio stream, and wanted to know what it was. Now, I am not a huge snake guy. I love 'em, but just don't have enough experience with snakes to know all of the species inside and out. Still, I've seen all but a few of the species that we have in Ohio over the years, and can usually tell what they are. This one flummoxed me.

 Photo: Gina Smith

Here's an even better photo; in fact, a darn good photo. For a died-in-the-wool snake person, there should be no excuse for not being able to identify this beast from this photo. Still, I wasn't sure. Best as I could tell, it was a red-bellied snake, Storeria occipitomaculata, but that identification rang hollow, and I didn't really think that's what it was.

So, I sent off this photo to herpetologist Jeff Davis (he's the one who showed me wall lizards last year). Jeff knew what it was - a Kirtland's snake, Clonophis kirtlandii - and was quite excited by the find for two reasons. One, Kirtland's snake is quite rare and local in Ohio, and is currently listed as a threatened species. Two, it was a bizarre aberrant individual - this Kirtland's snake was completely unpatterned and quite different in appearance than would be a normally marked individual. I didn't feel as bad about not knowing the animal after learning this; had it been a normally patterned snake, I probably would have been able to make the ID. As an added bonus, Gina found the animal in a county where there have been no reports of Kirtland's snake in several decades.

Photo: Todd Pierson/Flickr

Here's what a normal Kirtland's snake looks like. It sports a beautifully symmetrical pattern of nearly round dark blotches on a pale cream-yellow background. Notice the head is black, just like Gina's odd snake, and the overall shape of the animal is the same.

These harmless little snakes don't bite, and a whopper would be lucky to stretch to two feet. Gina reported that hers was little more than a foot in length. They apparently ape hog-nosed snakes when approached, and a threatened Kirtland's snake will flatten its body to paper-thin dimensions in an effort to appear larger, and launch ineffective strikes. Pick it up, and it drops the charade and makes no attempt to bite.

Apparently Kirtland's snake tends to be quite secretive, and spends its daylight hours hiding under logs, boards, rocks or other objects. They are also said to inhabitat crayfish burrows and other subterranean haunts, which would make detection quite difficult. There are probably more of them lurking out there than we think. The Kirtland's snake is not much of a gourmand, and prefers to feast on slimy wrigglers such as earthworms and slugs.

Birders will be well familiar with this snake's namesake - Jared Potter Kirtland. He, of course, also has a fabulous warbler named in his honor.

The Kirtland's snake is confined to the upper Midwest, as shown in blue on this map (courtesy of Herpedia). But the actual known distribution within that blued out region is much smaller. This snake is listed as some category of imperiled - endangered, threatened, etc. - in every state in which it is still found. Habitat loss has certainly played a role in the Kirtland's snake's demise, but other detrimental factors may be at work, too. Much remains to be learned about these gorgeous, secretive little animals.

Congratulations to Gina for a fabulous find, and for allowing me to share her photos.