(Kevin Enge, Florida Fish…)
Squirrels, blue jays and turtles thrive in Florida's concrete jungles, but life in the city isn't always so great for snakes.
Some are survivors and can hunt down and eat a smorgasbord of delights. But others are too finicky for their own good, while still others have the disadvantage of looking or sounding like a venomous snake.
Kevin Enge, a state biologist specializing in reptiles, wants to hear from Florida residents about sightings of three native-to-Florida snakes that U.S. authorities may eventually list as imperiled.
Question: For which snakes do you want sightings reported?
We are looking for the Florida pine snake, the Southern hognose snake and the short-tailed snake. They live in dry, sandy habitats, which, of course, are popular for people to live in, too. So the snakes have to deal with getting run over, people, their dogs, things like that.
Q: Snakes are stealthy. Can't they sneak about to stay alive?
Short-tailed snakes spend a lot of time underground, and they are very slender, very cryptic and blend in well. So people probably never see it even if it's in their yard. But it eats other snakes: crown snakes, little 6-inch snakes. So if there are no crown snakes, then a short-tailed is going to starve.
Q: The Southern hognose?
It grows to only 2 feet long, and it blends in well. But it also is a mimic of a pygmy rattlesnake. So even if people don't see rattles on it, they kill it automatically. People call it a puff adder or hissing viper. It's stocky and will flare its neck, going through a defense response. But it will never bite and, if bothered, it rolls over and plays dead. It's a very cute snake. It has a turned-up snout and looks like it's smiling.
Q: And the third?
The Florida pine snake is big. It can get up to more than 7 feet. They spend a lot of time underground, but if it's crawling around, it's a very conspicuous snake. When it gets defensive, it puts on an impressive display. They aren't prone to biting, but they strike like heck, which is more of a bluff. And they have a flap across their glottis [airway] that vibrates, so when they hiss they sound like a rattlesnake. And they look mean — they've got a bony ridge above their eye. A lot of people kill them. And it's prone to getting run over.
Q: What do you know about their current whereabouts?
We've haven't gotten much on short-tailed snakes, but that's not surprising because they are secretive. For Southern hognose snakes, most people are sending photos of Eastern hognose snakes, which is a bigger cousin and occurs throughout Florida. I'm getting a lot of pine-snake sightings. There are areas in Florida where these [three] snakes are abundant but, of course, once you get toward Orlando, there is so much development that there's probably just little pockets of them left.
Q: Why do some snakes, like black racers, thrive even in subdivisions?
They can live anywhere and eat anything. They'll eat snakes, lizards, mice, fish, frogs, anything they can chase down. And they are good at it.
Q: On a different topic, you are researching another critter, one of the world's largest freshwater turtles, that few people have seen and would be amazed if they did.
Across a lot of the Southeast, alligator snapping turtles have declined because there used to be a commercial harvest of them. Campbell Soup Co. in the late '60s and early '70s, after the government protected sea turtles, switched to alligator snapping turtles for soup. They had teams of trappers in Southeast catching snappers. But within a year of the ban on sea turtles, Florida banned the sale of alligator snappers. For the most part, they are doing well in Florida rivers.
To report one of the three snakes, go to myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/wildlife/snakes
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