What is it?

Ash works at an exotic pet store, as I'm sure many of you know, and the other day a few girls caught a small snake and brought it in. Well no one knows what it is and they were gonna release it back into the wild. Ash decided she wanted to bring it home. So now we have a tiny colubrid who is as feisty as can be. It actually jumps across the tub to strike you. CRAZY! Can anyone identify it?

http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._4213782_n.jpg

Looks to me like a gray, or red, rat snake. The red rat snakes are also called red corn snakes. Here is a list of all the non-venomous snakes in Tennessee http://http://www.tennsnakes.org/. There's not a whole lot of pictures, but you can do an image search with the names from that list. I'm not a rat snake person, but all the ones I've seen are pretty defensive.....even into adulthood. It may be best to release it back where it was found, or as close as possible, if you're not willing to deal with a pissy 5 foot snake. Good luck either way.

Looks like it might find a home in our back yard then. lol. IDK where it was caught.

EDIT: after looking at pics, I think its the gray.

Looks more like a racer or whipsnake, not a corn. That also explains the attitude.

If you don't let it go they tend to prefer lizards over rodents.

I thought it might be the gray also, but you'd be a better judge of that. As long as you can release it somewhere that's not close to a busy road (or any road if possible) then it'll be fine.

I live just outside of Nashville so a non-roaded place is hard to find without traveling far, but we have some rock outcroppings behind our house that i might let it go in so it has a place to ride and I have seen a blue-tailed skink out there so it might be able to find some babies or insects. I know it has eaten recently because it pooed this morning.

it's some species of racer for sure, I am jut not sure what kind! :D

Yep, racer. Babies have a different pattern than adults and have a lot of attitude. Id also say release it, WC racers dont do well in captivity a lot of the time.

eastern black rat snake, no doubt. got two if you'd like to compare :p.

blacks are often very um..... hissy? i guess that's close enough. lil monsters :D

not a racer; i don't have one at the moment, but i'll keep my eye out and post if i find one. those are very common around here, as are the coachwhips.

def black rat.