With back-to-back weekend days sunny and in the 60s, I decided to see what was up on the Erie Canal Towpath today.
It wasn’t long before I spotted this in the vegetation.
I removed it and set it on the pavement to get a better look at it. A Northern Brown Snake was the first wild snake that I ever caught; which took place on a family outing a long time ago. Later I learned that I could ride my bike to vacant lots in Cleveland and find them. One summer my friends and I caught a total of 17 of them – all in the same lot and all under the same truck mudflap.
We grew up calling these snakes DeKay’s Snakes, which is a common name that is not used as much anymore. The snake is named is in honor of American zoologist James Ellsworth De Kay who collected the first specimen in Long Island. It’s Latin name, Storeria dekayi, honors zoologist D. Humphreys Storer and James De Kay. This is the only North American snake whose scientific name is a double honorific – that is, both the genus and species name honor people.
This reptile is often mistaken for a baby Garter Snake. It is usually less than a foot long and mainly eats worms and slugs. Like the Garter Snake, it gives birth to live offspring. This secretive snake does well in urban areas and they seem to coexist well with humans in city settings and can be found in gardens, city parks, vacant lots, and old cemeteries as well as Metroparks.
Dekay’s Snakes are usually some shade of tan with two parallel rows of dark spots down their backs. Sometimes they sport a broad, lighter stripe in between the rows of spots. Though they are harmless, when they get scared they puff up or flatten out, showing white skin between their scales.