A friend found a snake in his basement that got entangled with one of those sticky mouse-catchers — you know, the ones where you peel off the cover and put the sticky side face-up on the floor, hoping that later, as you walk around in the dark, that you don’t forget that it is there.
And because I seem to be the resident herpetologist among my friends (since everyone knows I am always on the lookout for snakes, even in my sleep), I was asked to identify this snake with a grainy photograph as my only clue.
This snake had a black and tan pattern on its back — something that will always get my undivided attention — but it clearly was not a timber rattlesnake or copperhead.
I ultimately determined that it was an eastern hog-nosed snake.
