Garden Gem
By Frederick Boyce
The rough green snake
There is one local snake that is almpst always welcomed to the yard or garden—one
which does not typically frighten even those who have a phobia of snakes. The slender and
elegant rough green snake, Opheodrys aestivus, is aptly named, being a solid grassy-green
above with a yellowish-white underside. So perfectly does this vine-like serpent blend with
green foliage that it becomes almost completely invisible in its habitat and is usually noticed
only when it tries to cross a road or other open space.
Green snakes often look like a stalk of tall green grass that has blown into the roadway,
which is why I usually stop and take a closer look at every long stalk of grass that I see in the
road, especially when there isn’t any growing nearby. Unfortunately, these beautiful snakes
are often killed while crossing roads, as their primary defensive strategy is to remain very
still except for the forward part of the body, which they will stiffen and move slowly back
and forth in emulation of a green vine being swayed by a gentle breeze. They also employ
this cryptic strategy when stalking their arthropod prey (crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars,
other insects and spiders), a behavior that is fascinating to watch. One of the few snakes
that is almost wholly insectivorous, the green snake should be welcomed as a valued foe of
garden pests, and it is indeed difficult to imagine how anyone could object to such a lovely
and delicate creature.
There are two species of green snake in the U.S.—the rough green snake, which is found in
our area and throughout the southeast, and the very similar smooth green snake (Opheodrys
vernalis), which is found mostly in the northeast, ranging into Canada, and in scattered
(disjunct) populations across the Midwest. The main difference between the two species has
to do with two types of snake scales—keeled (rough) and smooth. Keeled scales are just that:
every individual scale, just like the bottom of a tiny boat, has a raised ridge, or keel, running
down the center. Smooth scales lack keels. Rough green snakes also tend to be much more
arboreal (better climbers) than smooth green snakes, and have larger round eyes.
Green snakes actively hunt for their prey by sight and have excellent vision, but like all
snakes, they rely heavily on a combination of the forked
tongue and an accompanying chemo-sensitive organ in the
roof of the mouth, the Jacobsons organ. In green snakes, the
tongue is red or bright orange. Despite persistent rumors,
and a single preserved specimen dating from 1871, smooth
green snakes have not been confirmed to occur in North
Carolina. Seldom seen because of their excellent camouflage, .
rough green snakes seem to be somewhat more common
along the coast than in the Piedmont where I grew up.
Thanks to a big book on snakes that was given to me at
a very young age, green snakes became an early obsession
of mine. I had my mother read me the chapter about green
snakes over and over until I was old enough to read it over
and over for myself. For several more years the wistful
phrase “that looks like a good place for green snakes” could
be heard emanating from the back seat of our automobile
as we passed thickets of lush NC greenery. Throughout my
kindergarten years, any foliage we encountered on family
outings—vacations, visits to relatives in the country or
family reunions—was thoroughly scoured for green snakes,
but the coveted creatures remained so elusive that I began
to doubt their very existence. At one of my Uncle Ed’s
large annual chicken stews on his farm near Walkertown,
I discovered a hole in a creek bank, and while I was pretty
sure that green snakes did not live in holes, I was willing to
entertain any possibility at that point. I rolled a small dirt
clod down the hole and while no green snakes emerged,
a large and angry swarm of yellow jackets did, completely
enveloping me and ruining the chicken stew.
By my seventh birthday, I was on the verge of giving up
altogether and despaired of ever seeing a live green snake
in my lifetime. Several of my second-grade classmates had
gathered sympathetically for a birthday party that seemed
more like a wake. More out of habit than anything else, I
The Shoreline " I August 2017
A rough green snake employs its primary defensive strategy—pretending to be a green vine
moving in a slight breeze.—P/ioto by Frederick Boyce
wished the same old wish I had wished for the past ever-so-many birthdays, and blew out
all the candles on my cake. At almost the same instant, I heard the front door of the house
open and close and my older brother, who was then curator of the Nature Science Center
at Reynolda Gardens, came striding in carrying a mayonnaise jar, which he plopped down
on the table in front of me, the smoke from my seven extinguished candles still hanging in
the air. The jar held what appeared to be two long strands of grass. “Why would he bring
me a jar of grass?” I wondered for about a half a second. Then the realization of what I
was looking at hit me. I was actually, finally, gazing upon two real, live green snakes. They
existed after all. I kept them in a terrarium in my basement museum and zoo for several
years and fed them on moths and other insects that I collected around the porch light at
night. I can guarantee that no person who knew the profound and lasting joy that those
dainty little creatures brought to a small boy would ever utter, or even countenance again,
that ugly old phrase “the only good snake is a dead snake.”
Some information about smooth green snakes in North Carolina for this article was
gathered from the book Reptiles of North Carolina by Palmer and Braswell, UNC Press.
Frederick Boyce is the staff herpetologist at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.
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