What is the best way to identify snakes?

[Praireboyfarmer]

When I had captured my Praire Kingsnake (Which do to negligence on my part got loose in my rickety old house and probably found it's way outside) I had a very hard time identifying it due to the variation in patterns and how similar these snakes could look to one another.

With arachnids (My cup of tea) the best way to get a "general" identification is to look at it's eyes first; patterns, size, body, etc. second. Especially if it's a species you're not familiar with. This won't tell you the exact type but will give you a good idea of where to start looking.

Now is there anything like this with snakes? What traits do you look for first? Especially with juveniles who may not have the distinctive characteristics. What is the best way to get a general idea of what you're looking at without just being really familiar and experienced?

You hear horror stories occasionally about people misidentifying animals like snakes and spiders (Which I don't intent to start catching and messing with snakes willy nilly) so how do the experts do it?

[FWK]

There are many methods but the key to all of them is like learning anything else, practice. Most of the time the features most immediately available are color and pattern. From there I always start with the head. Its overall shape, the placement of the eyes, the shape and size of the "lips" (upper and lower labial scales), the rostral scale (the scale at the tip of the nose), etc. Then I take in the overall proportions of the animal. The size of the head relative to the body, how distinct the head is from the neck, how thick the body vs its length, the shape of the body, how distinct the tail from the body, are the scales smooth or keeled, and so on. You can consider the habitat the animal was found in. Was it found ten feet up a tree, in the grass, near water, or under a board. With more familiarity you can even start to recognize different animals behavior. A Water Snake moves across the ground with a different gait than a Cottonmouth, a Rat Snakes threat display looks nothing like a Rattlesnake. The tight coil of an agitated Hognose's tail is just as distinctive as it's hood. With repetition and experience it becomes easy to take in all the available information quickly and recognize the animal.

When I was young practice was hard to come by. My field guides had more drawings than pictures. The only way to practice was by going out and finding animals, and sometimes that is easier said than done. These days you can look at pictures and watch videos of any snake you want with a few keystrokes. Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the snakes native to your area and you'll quickly start to recognize the differences between the major groups. From there the details will become easier and easier to spot.

[sirtalis]

I've gone field herping a few times and I usually use a book to identify the reptiles I catch. I use the National Audubon Society to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. It's full of color photographs and short but useful descriptions. It's also extremely small so it's defiantly not a hassle to carry around.

[MDT]

www.oksnakes.org