EVERYONE is posting snake pictures on social media right now. Just last night, one of my girlfriends killed one that she found in her BATHROOM. She posted pictures of the bloodied snake and all of her friends, as you would expect, freaked out in the Comments section.

“When are you moving?”

“The only good snake is a DEAD snake!”

And my personal favorite,

“I would’ve needed a joint after this!”

Get ready because snakes WILL be turning up this time of year, especially if you’re in the South, like me. I run in to them every Spring and the first thing I always think is, “What kind of snake IS that?”

Most people don’t know. We found one sunning himself next to the lake one day and all kinds of terrifying suggestions were made. Cottonmouth! Copperhead! One man even boldly declared it was a King Cobra, and warned us that it could spit venom. My kids and I went home and, through a little research, found out it was a Blotched Water Snake. They’re commonly confused with Cottonmouths (or Water Moccasins) but they’re nonvenomous and otherwise not worth worrying about.

It was a different story entirely when my daughter found a Copperhead along a hiking trail last summer, which was our first (and hopefully ONLY) encounter with a venomous snake. We didn’t try to kill it though, and instead watched it while it watched us. It was a really cool moment, one that we all appreciated until Mr. Copperhead slithered away into the trees.

That’s how I discovered the What Kind of Snake is This (North Texas) Facebook page, and I have loved it ever since. This is where people post pictures of the snakes they find, to have them identified. The administrators will tell them if there’s any cause for concern and quite often, come out to relocate the snake. They will do so even IF the snake is poisonous because A) it’s dangerous to get close enough to a poisonous snake to kill it and B) they feel that all snakes deserve to live.

They will also remind you that most snakes are GOOD to have around, since they’ll kill off any rodent issues you have. Nonvenomous Kingsnakes will even eat venomous snakes, like Copperheads and Rattlesnakes, so you DEFINITELY don’t want to kill them.

The What Kind of Snake is This page will also tell you what to do if you are bitten. Yes, snakes will bite if they feel threatened and on some occasions, it can be deadly. Wouldn’t you want advice from an expert if that were to happen? Well, after you called 911, of course.

The best part of this page though, is how much we can all learn from it. I can now easily identify several types of snakes, and knew that the one my friend killed in her bathroom was a nonvenomous Diamondback Water Snake. They are harmless, but do have a painful bite if threatened. She actually put herself in more danger by getting close enough to beat it with a baseball bat. In other words, she aged 15 years, risked being bitten, and made a bloody mess in her bathroom, all over what’s essentially a toothy bullfrog.

It’s not her fault though.

We don’t know much about snakes, so they scare us. Flip that sentence around though, for a better look at it. Snakes scare us because we don’t know much about them. Seems like an easy fix, right? Find the What Kind of Snake is This Facebook page by clicking HERE and get to know our little no-feet friends. Who knows. You might even start to LIKE snakes.

