Funny things people have told you about snakes.

[cristacake]

"You know that'll get like 20 feet long, right?"

"Don't put it around your neck!! It'll strangle you!!"

I have had one person ask "where's her butt?" which is actually pretty hilarious to think about in hindsight, but at the time I was just glad to be educating someone eager to learn.

Some people ask me, "aren't you afraid of her/ afraid that she'll do x?" and I always kinda want to be like uhh no, why the hell would I have an animal that makes me fear for my safety? Instead I just try to answer as patiently and non-condescendingly as possible. It's a little harder after hearing the same thing a million times, but I don't want to be mean. They've often never thought of the possibility of someone purposely having a snake in the house with them before, so they're thinking the logical first things that come to their minds. Especially if they're uneducated and think that all snakes are venomous and/or one track minded killing machines. 'Cold blooded,' ya know?

[cristacake]

My father used to tell this story about how when he was a boy and on his way to school there was a type of snake that would chase him and other children. The way the snake chased them was by putting his tail in his mouth and rolling after them! Especially going after them on downhill roads where the snakes would pick up speed. I kid you not! My father was from Whitmire, South Carolina about 50 miles outside of Columbia.

Ah, the hoop snake. I think they say coachwhips do that too, and will let go of their tails and whip you with them if they get close

[erebus45]

A friend of mine came over one time (unexpectedly like he always does lol) and It was maybe a couple weeks after I got my first bp and my friend didn't know I had a snake... well I had him out and I was playing on the computer and he was wrapped around my neck napping and my friend walks in the room and almost has a heart attack then after about 5 minutes of me LITERALLY explaining to him that's he was a pet and not some random snake that came into the house trying to kill me.... he ask me if he could pet him and he did and the first thing he says is "is he sick?" I said "no why"???? he said "he is not slimy something has to be wrong" well me being the bluntly honest person I am said "dude... snakes are not slimy" as I was laughing historically ....well long story short he wanted to know more about them so I explained everything I knew about bp's (thanks to this community) and now he has 2 bp's and a dumerils boa. needless to say I felt good about myself because I enlightened him enough he lost all fear of the animal and is now able to see their true beauty.

sorry its so long winded but I thought it would be cool to share. thank you

[distaff]

I can't believe the number of people who seem to think all snakes have fangs and venom!
These are people with advanced degrees.

Even as a kid chasing garters in the back yard, I knew they wouldn't hurt me. My mother, however, had a deep and generalized distrust of nature. We grew strawberries in the back yard. It was a small patch, and frequently by the time one ripened, it would already have a bite taken out of it before we got to it. She HONESTLY believed that the gartersnakes were the culprits.

[redshepherd]

I can't believe the number of people who seem to think all snakes have fangs and venom!
These are people with advanced degrees.

Even as a kid chasing garters in the back yard, I knew they wouldn't hurt me. My mother, however, had a deep and generalized distrust of nature. We grew strawberries in the back yard. It was a small patch, and frequently by the time one ripened, it would already have a bite taken out of it before we got to it. She HONESTLY believed that the gartersnakes were the culprits.

Right? Even after I got my first ball python, some coworkers were trying to dissuade me from snakes using venomous species like cottonmouths as examples... I'm like bruh lol.

also LOL!! My dad actually would totally believe the same thing if that happened to us. He once asked me if my snakes should eat some vegetables, because it would be a more balanced diet than just meat...

[Coluber42]

It's really amazing to me how many people ask how they poop. They're surprisingly, err, surprised to learn that snakes poop the same way as everybody else - they have a stomach, a small intestine, a colon, and an exit that is positioned at the juncture between the body and the tail (oh yeah, and that there is actually a distinction between the body and the tail).

To me that says that a lot of people just have an extremely tenuous grasp of basic biology. It's really a shame, because that basic lack of understanding informs public policy on conservation and environmental protection, endangered species protections, pet regulations, etc. Not to mention that it's just cool and amazing to see how much we have in common with animals that look so fundamentally different from us.

[Trisnake]

I'm enjoying reading all of this.

I once had someone tell me (with certainty) that snakes give people warts "like toads do", which is a myth to begin with, and my great grandmother has always had this idea that snakes "sting" with their forked tongues.

Its honestly kind of interesting, all the misconceptions and urban legends surrounding snakes.

[Medduussa]

Ugh one of my moms friends disliked the fact that I have snakes, she tells me they will kill me etc, I own ball pythons.... So she came up with this wild story that her friend from highschool had a large Python and this snake whenever it smelled mustard got aggressive and bit the owner and tried to kill him. Saying "sometimes snakes won't like a certain smell and go crazy, id be careful if i were you" LOL....


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[Medduussa]

I love correcting people when they use poisonous. One of the girls at work was like we saw a poisonous snake today. I'm like what? She repeated herself, and I'm like poisonous? Then she's like yea poisonous, so naturally I'm like venomous. Then we go back and forth so I decided to educate her on the difference.

Then when I see people say the only good snake is a dead snake, I usually make some remark to upset them. I hate idiots.

LOL YES this is the BEST thing to correct people on. Idk why I find it so satisfactory.


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[Micki]

People around here believe black snakes cross with rattlesnakes. And that I could feed my snakes crickets.

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