(Rough) Green Snake

Description:

These snakes are have a nice bright green color with a yellow underside and sometimes I have seen them with just a bit of yellow along the edge of a white belly. They tend to have very slim bodies and can grow to a length between 3 and 4 ft. long (about 115 cm). They are almost identical to the Smooth Green Snake but there are several things that distinguish the two, the most obvious being the texture of the scales. The Rough Greens have an elevated ridge running lengthwise down each of their dorsal scales. Also the Smooth Green does not get much longer than about 1 1/2 ft. in length (up to approx. 50 cm).

Habitat:

They primarily prey on spiders and insects. They are extremely arboreal though they do spend a lot of time on the ground as well. They seem to like crawling around through low lying branches and bushes. They can generally be found in meadows and wooded areas. They range from northeastern Mexico to the southeastern US and up along the Atlantic coast, as far north as New Jersey and as far west as Texas though they do not inhabit the higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains. This is kind of another distinguishing characteristic as the Smooth Green occupies northeastern Canada, down through the Midwestern U.S., and over near to Southwestern U.S.

Notes:

These snakes are extremely docile. If you happened to the the Southern Black Racer spotting I posted, the pics posted here are of the same Rough Green that can be seen in the other post being swallowed alive by the racer. One of the photos (blurry) I was trying to get the gash the green got while the black was trying to hold on to it and back away from me and Mom. The racer had the green snake nearly halfway down but ended up spitting it out when he felt threatened due to me and my mother taking the photographs (the angriest Black Racer I have ever seen in my life!). So anyway after the racer left I knelt down to look at the green snake which had just been laying still, not moving for several minutes. When I knelt down it popped its head up and stuck its tongue out and sat there like that for several more minutes and then slowly started crawling away almost like nothing had even happened. It moved just a little at a time and then would stop, I think because I was following and staying right there with it. I got the impression it was attempting to blend in...it would sway its head side to side slowly which, I wonder may have been an attempt at mocking a brach swaying in the breeze. I tried to get some video footage, I have a short video that I posted to Youtube. You can see in the video how their coloring does make for good camoflauge, comparing it to the color of the plant he crawles up into. Once he crawled out of the plant I escorted him the rest of the way to the woods and watched him go. He definitely had a good story to tell his friends!