Definitely one of the more awkward things I’ve ever attempted, especially in the name of mere curiosity.
So the eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) made another appearance a few minutes ago, and this time it was too far out of the burrow to retreat back into it, so in moments I had it in hand. First things first: this is not the same one as before, since this is much smaller, perhaps a meter and a half. I wasn’t going to get anywhere near an accurate measurement, since it was quite energetic and constantly writhed around attempting to find a way out of my grasp. Yet this was with perfect civility, never taking a chance to bite me and never thrashing about, not even defecating on me – it just kept questing about for a way to gain purchase on something that was other than me to make its escape.
But with it in hand and the snakeskin that I’d found a few days back sitting right on my desk, I had to make the direct comparison. Why, I don’t know, but I did. And I’m here to tell you, attempting to lay a shed skin alongside a squirming, weaving, questing snake that was firmly wrapped around one hand, leaving only one free, is an exercise in frustration, especially when trying to compare the tail sections. I’d just about get a section lined up when the snake would change its mind about where it wanted to go and shift off in another direction or start sliding through my fingers. I briefly attempted to get a pic of the snake alone with the proper camera, but all I had was my left hand, attempting to aim at my right, and I soon gave that up; I might have had slightly better luck had I snagged the snake in my left hand, but at that point switching up wasn’t exactly in the cards. We have the barest of images taken by the smutphone instead – nothing the least compelling, but proof that I had the snake at least.
That said, I can say I’m 80% sure that the shed skin came from this very snake: there were several little injuries along the snake’s back and these were lining up extraordinarily well. One or two, I might dismiss as both coincidental and unable to do a precise match in such conditions, but I matched up five or six, finding one and then tracking along the body until I found the next where predicted. The snake seemed perfectly healthy, but it’s definitely had its share of run-ins with adversity, including an injury right near the vent/cloaca.
The shed skin was found almost at the extreme other end of the house, quite a few meters away and giving a faint indication that the former owner had emerged from a crawlspace vent, while this snake itself seems to have a nice little burrow near my steps and under an overhang. Plus I thought I’d seen the larger specimen from a couple weeks back nosing along the house in the same crawlspace vent location. None of this disproves anything, it just fails to offer more support, and they might even be a mated pair – who knows? Overall though, it would have been a lot easier with a second handler, and no, The Girlfriend was out of the question, at her own insistence, even if she had been awake at the time.