Is this thing a freak of nature? Does anyone know of snakes in the Southeastern US getting so big? Having owned, caught, and handled numerous snakes in this area-oddly enought I caught and released two kingsnakes a couple days ago-I would never believe anyone that told me they saw a snake in Arkansas with a head the size of a large python. I got a good hard look at it and the size is in the burmese python/reticulated python/anaconda range, but it did’t seem to be as thick(top-bottom). The snake head I just saw was twice the size of a the head on my old burmese python (9’ 7" long and 30-35 lbs). The shape of the head that of a flat tip screwdriver, so its head widened to over 6". The front of his bottom jaw was around 5" wide(!!!). The best view I got was its lower jaw-thanks to the white underside. But the head was just too big to believe. Now that I’ve had time to calm down I am pretty sure that it was a cottonmouth. And very light off-white under its “chin”. The top of its head was very dark, maybe black in color. It did’t have a forked tongue.Īnd then my heart started pounding and I realized that this wasn’t a turtle. I caught kept an alligator turtle when I was 12. That definately should have tipped me off first thing. Also, my mind was still stuck on that long fork tongue flicking everywhere. Then my mind started to piece together other bits of information. The only reptile with a head that big here in NW Arkansas would be an alligator snapping turtle. Then my mind started to piece together what I was looking at. I guess the image didn’t make sense to my brain. At first I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what is was I was looking at, even though I could see it clearly from only six feet away. It was clearly a head-only view of a very large reptile. I swiftly stepped back a few feet, knelt down and stared at it for a few seconds. I had just set of some animals proximity alarm. The scary part was that it was that even though I couldn’t yet see the source of the sound, it was obvious I was no more than two feet away from whatever it was. And it was a very low, almost Darth Vader-like tone. It sounded like it was swollowing air by the gallons. In fact If you’ve been around reptiles you know what I mean. Very cool and very prehistoric sounding.Īnyway, having owned pythons, monitors, copperheads, and kingsnakes I knew as soon as I heard that hiss that this was a huge herp. They quickly fill themselves with air to gain the illusion of greater mass as well as to make one hell of a menacing hiss. In fact it sounded just like my old monitor lizard did when he tried to scare off my other pets. When I walked around to the side of the truck that runs along the fence, I heard a LOUD, low hiss. The truck sits about four feet from a wire fence that seperates my land from a very dense wooded area. I was outside just a few minutes ago working on a truck.
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