Over the weekend I took a 6 hour drive to the sandhill prairies of Illinois to look for a snake I’ve been wanting to see in the wild for quite some time – a Bull Snake. The sandhill prairies are located about a half hour south of Chicago.
It didn’t take long before I found my first snake. The Bull Snake is a large reptile, often 4-6 feet long. Occasionally it can grow to over 8 feet. This first snake was a female, about three feet long. The scale on the tip of the snake’s snout is enlarged – it is used for digging.
Since these snakes are long and heavy-bodied, they do not move particularly fast. So to defend themselves against predators, they are “master bluffers.” A Bull Snake will vibrate its tail, inflate with air, and hiss very loudly. They have a unique glottal structure that enable them to hiss louder than practically any other snake. Later on I found this four foot male.
The Bull Snake’s muscular neck, heavy skull and large scale on its snout are adaptations that enable it to root through the ground in search of they main food item: rodents. These are one of the most beneficial serpents we have in terms of keeping the rodent population in check.
Even a single Bull Snake exerts a major predatory impact around fields and stored crops where mice, rats and gophers abound.
It was a great weekend for herping; to see more photos from this trip, visit Sandhill Prairie Herping 2012.