Tuesday, October 26, 2010

pretty and deadly


pretty and deadly
Originally uploaded by cosmosmoonjewelry
It's finally cooling off here in Tucson- enough to be able to take a little hike in the desert. We went to Catalina State Park last Saturday morning with Daisy to walk the Romero Canyon loop (a relatively easy scenic desert trail). Thankfully, I had my eyes open and I spotted this beautiful creature just crossing the trail. I knew that we have snakes that look like coral snakes (but aren't) here in southern AZ they are pretty common, called Kingsnakes...BUT what I didn't know was that we also have coral snakes here (apparently someone forgot to tell them that our coral is long gone)

I took this picture so that I could identify the snake when we got home and to my surprise I find that it is a Western Coral snake (venomous and potentially deadly). So glad my son and my dog kept their distance (I did too- used a zoom on this image)

Here's the little rhyme that is taught to identify these two critters apart:
"Red touches yellow, could kill a fellow"
"Red touches black is a friend to Jack"

I'll remember it now! :-)
Happy trails to you!-MBZ

2 comments:

Roberta Warshaw said...

I had no idea you had them out there either. We had them in Florida. They were everywhere.

Always remember this poem:

Red touch yellow, kill a fellow.
Red touch black, you're all right Jack.

Mellisa said...

What a find! They're so gorgeous but when I ran into one in Sedona on a trail I didn't take the time to check the stripe pattern! Of course it was shortly after a rattlesnake encounter so I was extra jumpy :)

ganoksin

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