northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a Dekay's Brownsnake I met back in September (though not for the first time ). My impression is that these snakes are pretty common but are small enough they can be easily overlooked. Although the biggest on record was around 19 inches in length, most of the ones I see are smaller than that.  Their place in the food chain is that they mostly eat soft invertebrates like earthworms, slugs, and snails, and they're preyed upon by lots of small predators like some frogs/toads, bigger snakes, many birds, and small mammals like weasels. So if you invite a Dekay's Brownsnake over for dinner, you could serve escargot but don't invite your ferret friends. September 14, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 248762526, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I'm surprised I haven't shown one of these Dekay's Brownsnakes  (aka Northern Brown Snake) before; let's remedy that today. These are small non-venomous snakes that are generally light brown or grayish-brown. They tend to have lighter coloring along the top of the back bordered by darker spots. They're usually about a foot long but slender enough that you won't think of it as big. Because of their small size they are frequently misidentified as a young version of our larger snakes. Though they have a southern relative called the Florida Brown Snake , they also have a fairly close relative here in NJ: the Northern Redbelly Snake . Unfortunately I have yet to meet a Northern Redbelly Snake (though I routinely meet Northern Red-bellied Cooters .) The Northern Redbelly Snake has a red/orange belly and is otherwise darker than the Dekay's Brownsnake, but otherwise these are pretty similar snakes. Though they're said to be secretive, on cool spring or autumn d...