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Can anyone please identify this snake?


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Saw this rather mutilated specimen on the grassy path when we took the dogs for a walk - whatever killed it darn near cut it in half. Didn't  want to mess with it as flies everywhere but my wife dropped her flip-flop beside it for scale.

 

Was it a venomous snake or not, mostly black with the white striations? Location Khlong Sam Wa, NE of Bangkok.

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Not the best pictures, so just a guess on my part, but it could possibly be a Red Tailed Pipe Snake (non-venomous)

red-tailed-pipe-snake-thailand22.jpg

 

Could you see if the stripes were on the belly or the back? If it was a Red Tailed Pipe Snake, the white stripes would be on the belly.

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Thanks, that is a highly technical article but I was able to look via google and found it on Wikipedia too. Not venomous but mimics the krait which is dangerous. 

 

We avoid all snakes on principle!

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Another picture of the Red Tailed Pipe Snake:

Cylindrophis ruffus

 

Notice how (some of) the stripes are kind of off-set, which is quite unusual in snakes. The snake in your pictures have the same kind of off-set stripes.

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54 minutes ago, cliveshep said:

We avoid all snakes on principle!

Yes, sound policy. We avoid them, they avoid us and no one comes to any harm.

 

So what happened to this harmless little creature?

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No idea, it was in open country - track between rice fields where we walk the dogs. The farmer is a friend of ours - no friend of rats or snakes though although he will kill a snake as a by-product of poisoning rats he does trap rats if he can as he gets 100 bahts a kilo for rats with no poison. But when the field is freshly seeded then he goes along putting poisoned corn down every hole some of which of course have been adopted by snakes. Mostly they are rat-snakes but we've encountered cobra there too. Had a 3 metre king cobra trying to get in our screen door one day, since that time once the cobra gave up and went over the wall into the jungle behind we put nets all round the entire house to keep the snakes out away from our dogs.

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, cliveshep said:

No idea, it was in open country - track between rice fields where we walk the dogs. The farmer is a friend of ours - no friend of rats or snakes though although he will kill a snake as a by-product of poisoning rats he does trap rats if he can as he gets 100 bahts a kilo for rats with no poison. But when the field is freshly seeded then he goes along putting poisoned corn down every hole some of which of course have been adopted by snakes. Mostly they are rat-snakes but we've encountered cobra there too. Had a 3 metre king cobra trying to get in our screen door one day, since that time once the cobra gave up and went over the wall into the jungle behind we put nets all round the entire house to keep the snakes out away from our dogs.

 

 

 

Did the farmer ever think if he left the snakes alive there would be far fewer rats in his field? 

 

That poison also kills may innocent animals like dogs and birds. 

 

We get a lot of snakes but never had a problem with then abs our dogs. The dogs know to leave them well alone, and just bark at then from a distance. 

 

 

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10 hours ago, jak2002003 said:

Did the farmer ever think if he left the snakes alive there would be far fewer rats in his field? 

 

That poison also kills may innocent animals like dogs and birds. 

 

We get a lot of snakes but never had a problem with then abs our dogs. The dogs know to leave them well alone, and just bark at then from a distance. 

 

 

He spoons the seed down the rat holes but only when he isn't trapping rats to sell. Yes, some seed gets outside the hole and we have seen one or two dead pigeons - but the farm is home to many hundreds of pigeons and the locals unconnected with the farm slingshot them from time to time from their adjacent homes or their kids even come onto the farm to kill birds - we always chase them off. But the only dog killed was a beautiful and friendly dog believed poisoned by jealous neighbours to the farmer. It wasn't his dog but would come onto the farm every evening to play with our dogs, it used to wait for them on the track. But the dogs don't eat corn, and certainly not dead snakes. As for the rats we have never seen dead ones on the surface. 

 

The farm is one of the tidiest for miles, the weed and grass on the track trimmed regularly, the canal raked clear of weed, and even hand weeding done around the rice field. It is seldom we even see a rat-snake - presumably because with out rats to catch they clear off somewhere else to hunt. I'd say the farmer is doing the right thing - snakes and rats aren't anyone's friends really.

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