CRIKEY!!!!Coral snake!

extropic said:
I assume that your wife took the pictures. Kudos to her for having the fortitude to come that close and hold that steady. Many (most?) would not.
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Haha, she's not a girly girl. She has caught scorpions, killed her fair share of nasty black widows and centipedes . She normally will name the tarantulas found in the back yard and leave them be. She refuses to pick up snakes or river toads leaving those to me. If we didn't have dogs, we would likely let them move on eventually but a bite would result in a hefty vet bill with no guarantee. The river toads (monsoon season) have claimed many dogs. Simply licking them can be fatal, I probably evicted 10-15 toads this year alone.
 
River toads? That's a new one for me. And fatal to a dog? What do they look like?
 
4gsr said:
Are those fange proof gloves you are wearing there?
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They are for Arizona coral snakes as they have a small head and small fixed (non hinging) fangs. I normally hold venomous snakes just behind the head (no gloves) but this little guy would have likely been killed if I grabbed it like that. Don't get me wrong gentlemen, I have a hefty respect for these creatures and only deal with them to keep my pack safe and sound.
 
I was born and raised in Tucson (left after 11th grade, 1965) but had totally forgotten about those toads until you mentioned them. Those were the days.
 
Glad you just remove them. Too many people have to kill every snake they see. I've watched a lot of people swerve into the other lane to run one over.
 
re: the toads, here in Florida they're called Bufo Toads....yeah they can and have killed dogs and cats..If u pick one up it will exude a white toxin on either side of the head and u definitely want no cuts on the hands near that ...wash after ..otherwise they're just another weird thing....suckers get BIG though...had a neighbor that used to put dog food out so she could watch the toads gather ??? !!
 
My first summer out of high school I had a job maintaining the drip irrigation systems at Southwest Desert Farms Inc. Routinely I'd find little sidewinders curled up under the end of a dripping pressure cap on a line. The wet spot and the drip would cool by evaporation quite cool, and by morning when I was walking the lines the little guys were so cool they were lethargic. I'd scoop them up with a shovel and fling them back over the fence into the desert. Then I could put my thumb over the cap a couple times to clear the sand and stop the drip. We have a variety of rattlers here in the desert. Most are more common than sidewinders, but it was always sidewinders I'd find chilling under a dripping pressure cap. Some mornings I'd see three or four of them like that.
 
I was born in Tucson and raised on a small place in the foothills of the Catalina mountains near Bear Canyon, we always had a lot of rattelers, until my dad found the den, five gallons of heating oil did the trick.
 
Man I hope I done have a den of Coral snakes. It weird, been living in Tucson since 1973 and only seen two coral snakes in nature, both of them on our property one year apart. Its possible its the same one but I cant be that lucky:(.
 
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